Patent ID: 7873724

Claim:
An analysis system, comprising: a plurality of sensors configured to collect perception evidence; a computer system comprising a perception system that, when executed, consumes computing resources of the computing system, the perception system comprising: a control component that selectively gathers from the plurality of sensors the perception evidence, the perception evidence being gathered at times selected to limit utilization of the computing resources of the computer system by the perception system; and an analysis component that utilizes an analysis policy to analyze the perception evidence to determine a context of a user of the computer system, wherein: the control component uses information from the analysis component regarding at least one feature about which to collect data to select the times at which to gather perception evidence from one or more of the plurality of sensors; the analysis component generates the information based on a value of the at least one feature for determining the context; the analysis policy comprises at least one selected from the group consisting of: a random selection perception policy that randomly selects which features to utilize on a frame by frame basis, a rate-based perception policy that defines observational frequencies and duty cycles for at least one feature or an EVI-based perception policy that determines an expected value of information via a cost-benefit analysis means utilizing at least expected values and cost of analysis values for at least one feature, the cost of analysis values comprising at least one value proportional to an impact to the computing resources employed by the perception system.