Environment Simulation for the Promotion of the Open Data Initiative

The development, testing and evaluation of novel approaches to Intelligent Environment data processing require access to datasets which are of high quality, validated and annotated. Access to such datasets is limited due to issues including cost, flexibility, practicality, and a lack of a globally standardized data format. These limitations are detrimental to the progress of research. This paper provides an overview of the Open Data Initiative and the use of simulation software (IE Sim) to provide a platform for the objective assessment and comparison of activity recognition solutions. To demonstrate the approach, a dataset was generated and distributed to 3 international research organizations. Results from this study demonstrate that the approach is capable of providing a platform for benchmarking and comparison of novel approaches.