Lynred and GreenWaves Technologies announced their collaboration on a new open source Occupancy Management Reference Platform. This platform is intended for the connected buildings market, primarily for managing and optimizing workspace in offices.

Real estate overhead is reportedly a company’s second-largest cost, due to the impact of building shortages and the rising price per square meter. Yet, building occupation rates are not optimized, with as much as 40% of spaces left underutilized, according to a 2015 CBRE Workplace Strategy survey.

Lynred and GreenWaves are making an evaluation board available with an open source implementation of the design and the algorithm. The board runs on a single AA battery and can be used to evaluate the performance of the reference platform.

The reference platform was developed by combining Lynred’s low-power consumption infrared (IR) sensors/imagers with GreenWaves’ GAP8 IoT Application Processor, an ultra-low-power MCU class device that enables artificial intelligence in small battery-powered sensors at the very edge of the network. The reference platform lets building equipment suppliers fast-track production of their own battery operated, easy to install people counting devices. It offers occupancy management service companies the next level in data accuracy for locating and counting people, enabling differentiation in their service platforms. All of the hardware and software components of the reference platform are released under permissive open source licenses.

The Occupancy Management Reference Platform consists of hardware, software, and algorithms for people detection using infrared technology. Unlike other visible or 3D technologies, infrared ensures the anonymity of occupants in office spaces; whether assessing desk occupancy or counting people in a meeting room.