The cyber physical systems (CPS) revolution is well underway. All manner of physical objects in our buildings and cities are being brought online under the banner of the Internet of Things (IoT). Objects with the ability to sense their environment and reason about the implications, are optimising processes, creating value, enhancing resiliency and developing responsiveness. A new paper, however, takes this a step further by introducing the notion of activity-aware CPS. “Activity-aware systems are valuable when transforming cities to smart cities because the services, such as building automation, transportation routing, and energy provisioning, can now adapt to the needs of individual users,” suggests the paper by Brian L. Thomas and Diane J. Cook, entitled ‘Activity-Aware Energy-Efficient Automation of Smart Buildings.’ The hypothesis of the paper is that smart buildings, a key component of smart cities, can benefit from being activity aware. It was tested, with regard to energy efficiency using the foundation of a prototype […]