Patent ID: 8577711

Claim:
A method of facilitating management of occupancy of a first physical space, the first physical space comprising a plurality of physical elements, wherein each of the physical elements is attached to one or more sensors, the method comprising: generating data by monitoring at least one of the plurality of physical elements over a first period of time by at least one of the one or more sensors; determining, based on the generated data, a portion of probable utilization states by the at least one of the one or more sensors; transmitting the portion of probable utilization states of the first physical space from the at least one of the one or more sensors to an evaluation processor; determining, by the evaluation processor, that an additional portion of probable utilization states were not received based on a reporting interval of the at least one of the one or more sensors; determining, by the evaluation processor, the additional portion of probable utilization states by extrapolation; determining, by the evaluation processor, a plurality of probable utilization states of the first physical space over the first period of time based on the received portion of probable utilization states and the determined additional portion; determining, by the evaluation processor, a number of occupants occupying at least a portion of the first physical space by evaluating at least a portion of the determined probable utilization states and determining whether movement of the at least one of the plurality of physical elements was caused by an occupant or was due to some other cause by combining sensor data with additional occupancy data inputs or by comparing a plurality of sequential utilization states of the determined probable utilization states for the at least one of the plurality of physical elements; contextualizing, by a contextualization processor, the determined number of occupants of the first physical space by correlating the determined number of occupants to at least one of: an attribute of the first physical space, a temporal event, or a non-temporal event; and generating and displaying a report from the contextualized determined number of occupants.