A 3D simulator for intelligent environment experiments

The advances in sensor networks, electronics and ambient intelligence make creation of intelligent environments (IEs) possible. However, on account of economic and logistic issues the implementation of physical IEs is difficult in research domain. That makes it harder for researchers to experiment new approaches in IE domain. In this article, we propose a simulator to build virtual IEs. Simulators are a good alternative to physical IEs. Indeed, virtual IEs does not require expensive resources. Moreover, researchers and designers can conduct experiments anytime and repeat scenarios easily. Our simulator provides users with a set of virtual sensors and actuators. Our virtual sensors try to reproduce behavior of physical sensors and to produce datasets with the same properties as those generated by real sensors. Our proposition contains a tool to build a home from scratch and a model to define scenarios and behaviors of occupants. It also proposes an interface to control occupants directly. Virtual sensors collect data and generate datasets. Scientists and designers can use these datasets to evaluate and design new approaches in IE domain.