Liouville-Based Predictive Models for Occupancy Estimation Using Small Training Data

In this article, we propose a predictive model based on Beta-Liouville (BL) and inverted BL (IBL) mixture models for occupancy estimation in smart buildings. This model gives better results than point estimate methods, when the training data is small, because it is based on data-driven predictive distribution. The Liouville-based mixture models were chosen because of their flexibility in fitting symmetric and asymmetric distributions. However, the large number of parameters of BL and IBL increases the uncertainty in approximating the upper bound of the predictive distribution, hence we propose an optimization scheme in which reliability is investigated and verified. In addition, we extend our work presented by giving more details about the predictive model and by studying the occupancy estimation in smart buildings problems in depth. Indeed, different occupancy scenarios are considered to show the merits of our predictive framework. This article aims to address the problem of occupancy estimation with a focus on scenarios where small training data sets are available. By developing robust predictive models that can generalize well with limited data, this research seeks to facilitate the early adoption and practical application of occupancy models in various domains.