On the Effect of Sensing-Holes in PIR-based Occupancy Detection Systems

Abstract

Sensing-holes in PIR-based motion detection systems are considered, and their impact on occupancy monitoring applications is investigated. To our knowledge, none of prior works on PIR-based systems consider the presence of these holes, which represents the major cause for low precision of such systems in environments featured with very low mobility of occupants, such as working offices. We consider optimal placement of PIRs that ensures maximum coverage in presence of holes. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming optimization problem (MILP). Based on this formulation, an experimental study on a typical working office has been carried out. The empirical results quantify the effects of the holes on the detection accuracy and demonstrate the enhancement provided by the optimal deployment of the solution.