Intelligent Building and Home Energy Management
-- One of the areas that has seen considerable development of intelligent device technology is the historically difficult application of managing multiple disparate systems that make up a typical office or commercial building.  These buildings have HVAC, security, lighting, refrigeration, and energy consumption as just some of the systems that could and need to be centrally managed.  Furthermore, many of these systems would benefit from being able to act on each others data -- e.g. the lighting system using the motion detectors of the security system to determine where people are and turn on/off lights.  Most automated lighting systems require proprietary motion detectors to do this, but with intelligent networks of smart things the lighting system could leverage the security system for that telemetry.

To build these types of integrated systems, one must first enable the device to communicate with each other, then enable a control system to manage them and software that programs the interactions and reports back to the operators on the status of the building and its systems.

In the case of energy management, Serious Energy has build the software solution that manages the various subsystems to maximize energy efficiency.

Their web-based application enables a building manager to monitor energy usage in real-time at an individual device/system level, monitor to make sure that systems and devices are functioning properly, reset systems based on weather and outside temperature, and provide customized internal departmental billing based on actual energy consumption.

What enables this application interface with all these subsystems is an intelligent device by Echelon called a SmartServer -- a versatile smart energy manager that connects to IP-based applications such as enterprise energy management solutions, demand response programs, streetlight management systems, and high-value remote asset management programs, and link thousands of electronic devices to control centers.

A number of other companies make similar intelligent devices including Cisco and Tridium.

In the consumer space, a former Apple iPhone engineer has developed the first intelligent thermostat that learns from the homes occupants.  The NEST learning thermostat is a revolutionary product that bring intelligent energy management of HVAC to the home.

The NEST thermostat learns in one week how the manage the temperature in your home and provides both web based and smartphone based management tools as well as a very slick user interface on the device itself.

Processing Power
-- In the 40 years since 1971 and the advent or Moore's Law (here's a Wikipedia link if you want to read more about this) regarding the theoretical increase of processing power of microprocessors over time, the power of microprocessors has increased by over 1 million times.

Where the microprocessor of 1971 was able to drive a simple calculator -- that cost almost what a netbook computer costs today -- today's microprocessors are much more powerful and enable the products they power to be very intelligent.  Just look at the capabilities of an iPad or smart phone today.  The Apple iPhone 4S and the Siri intelligent agent provide the capabilities the movie "2001 Space Odyssey" nearly human mainframe HAL (including some humorous emulation of HAL).  Of course at the time HAL (by the way one letter further ahead in the alphabet for each of the letters in HAL spells IBM) was viewed as utterly science fiction -- today it's a consumer device that fits in your pocket.

We are not far from cars that drive themselves and manage the fits and starts of traffic.  A number of manufacturers (here is a link to a Wikipedia topic on the subject with videos etc...) are experimenting with the combination of intelligent cruise control (using radar range finding capabilities) combined with internet based traffic data.

As a matter of fact, the average car has numerous intelligent systems using many microprocessors to manage braking, cruise control, fuel injection, climate control, air bags and much more.

The microprocessors that power the average smart phone are more than capable of powering some very intelligent things. Considering the fact that they have built-in communications (cellular, Blue Tooth and WiFi), user interface, storage et al.  Simply add some analog and serial i/o and you have a perfect platform  on which to build some powerfully intelligent things.

One final thought on the subject -- the computers that took Apollo to the moon and back were really nothing more than special purpose calculators.  Even the computers on the space shuttles were pretty much built to just calculate and do specific functions.  The average laptop could have run every system on the space shuttle while streaming the latest episode of "Third Rock from The Moon" without dropping a single frame....

Things That Think

-- In 1987, I watched with fascination a video (click here to see the video) produced by Apple for a concept called “The Knowledge Navigator”.  The video shows a tablet computer (just like an early version of the iPad) with an intelligent personal assistant agent (just like Siri on the iPhone 4S), video conferencing (like Skype), and gathers information by itself from other sources on the internet in order to see if the user needs to leave earlier for his appointment.

I felt that there would come a day when many of our every day devices would be intelligent enough to think independently and use information from their environment, peers and other sources both locally and remotely to monitor, manage and control systems the make our lives better and operate our businesses.

I became focused on technologies that could enable this vision. I developed ARCnet and Ethernet based interface products and eventually built one of the first programmable embedded device servers that enabled any device to become intelligent and go “on line” so it could be controlled, monitored and managed over the internet -- and it was only the size of a large sugar cube.

I continue to create visions and concepts for products and systems that leverage intelligent devices to run business processes more efficiently, make our lives safer, save energy, and keep us healthy.

I designed this blog to be a place where I could share some of my thoughts on smart devices, things that think, robotics and autonomous systems.