A WiFi-based occupancy sensing, modelling, and simulation method to ensure COVID-19 ventilation and social distancing norms at workplaces

随着各省份纷纷开始计划重返工作岗位，我们将面临新的挑战，即在室内保持安全的社交距离。需要制定政策来定义可接受的居住者密度和室内设计配置。与室外安全距离政策不同，这些政策还应考虑到个人通风要求，以尽量减少接触传染性气溶胶的风险。这些政策需要根据共享办公空间的高分辨率测量入住率数据来制定。为此，占用传感解决方案为制定政策建议和规范这些政策提供了一个尚未开发的机会。

As provinces are planning for return-to-work, a new challenge that we will face is to practice safe social distancing indoors. Policies to define acceptable occupant densities and interior design configurations are needed. Unlike the safe distancing policies for outdoors, these policies should also consider per-person ventilation requirements to minimize the risk of exposure to infectious aerosols. These policies need to be developed upon high resolution measured occupancy data from shared office spaces. To this end, occupancy sensing solutions offer an untapped opportunity to develop policy recommendations and to regulate these policies. In this project, a team of researchers will partner with two firms specialized in occupancy sensing solutions and study high-resolution occupancy data from real office buildings. The team will develop an agent-based occupancy modelling approach to simulate indoor occupancy patterns for a variety of office layouts. The results of this analysis will lead to policy recommendations for occupant densities and an online interactive tool to simulate occupancy patterns for different occupant densities and office layouts. The team will also conduct a case study demonstrating the use of WiFi-based occupancy sensing technology to regulate occupant density policies in an administrative office building at Carleton University. The proposed research will contribute to our efforts to restart the economy while minimizing the risk of new outbreaks starting at workplaces. The methods developed, once adopted by our partners, will contribute to our knowledge-based economy. One postdoctoral researcher and one Ph.D. student will conduct multidisciplinary research and develop widely sought-after skills in data mining, visualization, and occupant modelling and simulation.