One of the key requirements for technological systems that are used to secure independent housing for seniors in their home environment is monitoring of daily living activities (ADL), their classification, and recognition of routine daily patterns and habits of seniors in Smart Home Care (SHC). To monitor daily living activities, the use of a temperature, CO₂, humidity sensors, and microphones are described in experiments in this study. The first part of the paper describes the use of CO₂ concentration measurement for detecting and monitoring room´s occupancy in SHC. In second part focuses this paper on the proposal of an implementation of Artificial Neural Network based on the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm (LMA) for the detection of human presence in a room of SHC with the use of predictive calculation of CO₂ concentrations from obtained measurements of temperature (indoor, outdoor) T_i, T_o and relative air humidity rH. Based on the long-term monitoring (1 month) of operational and technical functions (unregulated, uncontrolled) in an experimental Smart Home (SH), LMA was trained through the data picked up by the sensors of CO₂, T and rH with the aim to indirectly predict CO₂ leading to the elimination of CO₂ sensor from the measurement process. Within the realized experiment, input parameters of the neuronal network and the number of neurons for LMA were optimized on the basis of calculated values of Root Mean Squared Error, the correlative coefficient (R) and the length of the measured training time ANN. With the use of the trained network ANN, we realized a strictly controlled short-term (11 h) experiment without the use of CO2 sensor. Experimental results verified high method accuracy (>95%) within the short-term and long-term experiments for learned ANN (1.6.2015–30.6.2015). For learned ANN (1.2.2014–27.2.2014) was verified worse method accuracy (>60%). The original contribution is a verification of a low-cost method for the detection of human presence in the real operating environment of SHC. In the third part of the paper is described the practical implementation of voice control of operating technical functions by the KNX technology in SHC by means of the in-house developed application HESTIA, intended for both the desktop system version and the mobile version of the Windows 10 operating system for mobile phones. The resultant application can be configured for any building equipped with the KNX bus system. Voice control implementation is an in-house solution, no third-party software is used here. Utilization of the voice communication application in SHC was proven on the experimental basis with the combination of measurement CO₂ for ADL monitoring in SHC.

Many direct and indirect methods, processes, and sensors available on the market today are used to monitor the occupancy of selected Intelligent Building (IB) premises and the living activities of IB residents. By recognizing the occupancy of individual spaces in IB, IB can be optimally automated in conjunction with energy savings. This article proposes a novel method of indirect occupancy monitoring using CO₂, temperature, and relative humidity measured by means of standard operating measurements using the KNX (Konnex (standard EN 50090, ISO/IEC 14543)) technology to monitor laboratory room occupancy in an intelligent building within the Internet of Things (IoT). The article further describes the design and creation of a Software (SW) tool for ensuring connectivity of the KNX technology and the IoT IBM Watson platform in real-time for storing and visualization of the values measured using a Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol and data storage into a CouchDB type database. As part of the proposed occupancy determination method, the prediction of the course of CO₂ concentration from the measured temperature and relative humidity values were performed using mathematical methods of Linear Regression, Neural Networks, and Random Tree (using IBM SPSS Modeler) with an accuracy higher than 90%. To increase the accuracy of the prediction, the application of suppression of additive noise from the CO₂ signal predicted by CO₂ using the Least mean squares (LMS) algorithm in adaptive filtering (AF) method was used within the newly designed method. In selected experiments, the prediction accuracy with LMS adaptive filtration was better than 95%.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of people prefer individual single-track vehicles for urban transport. Long-range super-lightweight small electric vehicles are preferred due to the rising cost of electricity. It is difficult for new researchers and experts to obtain information on the current state of solutions in addressing the issues described within the Smart Cities platform. The research on the current state of the development of long-range super-lightweight small electric vehicles for intergenerational urban E-mobility using intelligent infrastructure within Smart Cities was carried out with the prospect of using the information learned in a pilot study. The study will be applied to resolving the traffic service of the Poruba city district within the statutory city of Ostrava in the Czech Republic. The main reason for choosing this urban district is the fact that it has the largest concentration of secondary schools and is the seat of the VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava. The project investigators see secondary and university students as the main target group of users of micro-mobility devices based on super-lightweight and small electric vehicles.

This article is aimed to describe the method of testing the implementation of voice control over operating and technical functions of Smart Home Come. Custom control over operating and technical functions was implemented into a model of Smart Home that was equipped with KNX technology. A sociological survey focused on the needs of seniors has been carried out to justify the implementation of voice control into Smart Home Care. In the real environment of Smart Home Care, there are usually unwanted signals and additive noise that negatively affect the voice communication with the control system. This article describes the addition of a sophisticated system for filtering the additive background noise out of the voice communication with the control system. The additive noise significantly lowers the success of recognizing voice commands to control operating and technical functions of an intelligent building. Within the scope of the proposed application, a complex system based on fuzzy-neuron networks, specifically the ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Interference System) for adaptive suppression of unwanted background noises was created. The functionality of the designed system was evaluated both by subjective and by objective criteria (SSNR, DTW). Experimental results suggest that the studied system has the potential to refine the voice control of technical and operating functions of Smart Home Care even in a very noisy environment.

The internet protocol television service (IPTV) has become a key product for internet service providers (ISP), offering several benefits to both ISP and end-users. Because packet networks based on internet protocol have not been prepared for time-sensitive services, such as voice or video, packet networks have had to adopt several mechanisms to secure minimal transmission standards in the form of data stream prioritization. There are two commonly used approaches for video quality assessment. The first approach needs an original source for comparison (full-reference objective metrics), and the second one requires observers for subjective evaluation of video quality. Both approaches are impractical in real-time transmission because it is difficult to transform an objective score into a subjective quality perception, and on the other hand, subjective tests are not able to be performed immediately. Since many countries worldwide put IPTV on the same level as other broadcasting systems (e.g., terrestrial, cable, or satellite), IPTV services are subject to regulation by the national regulation authority. This results in the need to prepare service qualitative criteria and monitoring tools capable of measuring end-user satisfaction levels. Our proposed model combines the principles of both assessment approaches, which results in an effective monitoring solution. Therefore, the main contribution of the created system is to offer a monitoring tool able to analyze the features extracted from the video sequence and transmission system and promptly translate their impact into a subjective point of view.

Standard solutions for handling a large amount of measured data obtained from intelligent buildings are currently available as software tools in IoT platforms. These solutions optimize the operational and technical functions managing the quality of the indoor environment and factor in the real needs of residents. The paper examines the possibilities of increasing the accuracy of CO₂ predictions in Smart Home Care (SHC) using the IBM SPSS software tools in the IoT to determine the occupancy times of a monitored SHC room. The processed data were compared at daily, weekly and monthly intervals for the spring and autumn periods. The Radial Basis Function (RBF) method was applied to predict CO₂ levels from the measured indoor and outdoor temperatures and relative humidity. The most accurately predicted results were obtained from data processed at a daily interval. To increase the accuracy of CO₂ predictions, a wavelet transform was applied to remove additive noise from the predicted signal. The prediction accuracy achieved in the selected experiments was greater than 95%.