Sensor-aware elevator scheduling for smart building environments

In a modern smart building, sensors can detect various physical information such as temperature, humidity, motion, and light, which can be used for smart living services. This paper presents an efficient elevator scheduling system by making use of indoor sensor technologies. Specifically, multiple sensor devices consisting of RFID, video, and floor sensors are used together to detect the candidate elevator passengers' behavior before they push the elevator call button. The detected information is then delivered to the elevator scheduling system through building networks. By using this information, our scheduling system generates a reservation call for candidate passengers and controls the moving direction and the moving time of elevator cars efficiently. Extensive simulations with various passengers' traffic conditions show that the proposed system performs significantly better than the conventional elevator scheduling system in terms of the average waiting time, the maximum waiting time, and the energy consumption of elevator systems.