B4 - Samuel Boyce - Wearables - Group A

The topic that I have chosen to work on for my final project is that of wearables, specifically in relation to their usage in buildings both during construction and its operation. I only heard about this topic last year during my final co-op at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In their newest building, as well as to some degree in their older buildings, they were installing a system known as RTLS (Real Time Location System). In essence it is a system that is used to locate people within a building, but its applications go far beyond that. One of the main functionalities of the system was integrated with the Nurse Call system. If a call was made, the nurse on duty would be located and identified. As soon as she entered the patients room, the call would be automatically turned off, ensuring efficient usage of resources. The new building had even grander plans for its RTLS system, which included patient tracking.

Although wearables relationship with Intelligent Buildings (IB) may not be immediately clear, I hope the above example has pointed you in the right direction. The applications for this range from the mundane task of ensuring hourly employees are paid justly all the way to personalised rooms that change depending on who is entering the room. As part of this paper I hope to examine not only what is available  today, but also look towards the future of wearables being used in buildings.

One challenge I foresee with this topic is the lack of diversity in current uses. To my knowledge, Hospitals are one of the few places that have adopted this RTLS technology, and off the top of my head I am not aware of any large scale uses of wearables in conjunction with a building, but I am hoping to be surprised. I also see challenges with the implication of this topic, and therefore it is something that I would like to cover as well.

Comments:

http://ae-510-ay15-16.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-topic-for-final-project-is-how.html?showComment=1454426436163#c7965182714040418740

http://ae-510-ay15-16.blogspot.com/2016/01/topic-discussion-rebecca-lynch-group-a.html?showComment=1454428052621#c7051254003860384661