The family will move into the house in May

Nick and Sue Parnell will be electronically tagged while living in a house equipped with sensors to monitor how long they spend in different rooms.

The University of Nottingham and David Wilson Homes hope the research will help change future housing designs.

The �750,000 house includes three balconies, self-cleaning windows and an automatic shirt ironer.

'Big Brother'

The couple and their teenage daughters Lucy, 16, and Hazel, 13, will wear wrist tags which send information to a computer in the roof of the house built on a former hospital site at Lodge Moor.

Dr Mark Gillott , of the University of Nottingham, said: "State-of-the-art tracking technology will provide us with an unobtrusive 'big brother' study of how the family spend their time in the house.

"We will record all their movements which will provide us with an invaluable insight into their use of the house and how they are influenced by the building's layout and form."

James Wilson, development director for David Wilson Homes, said: "House design has to evolve as the needs of families change over the decades.

"We have to think now about what families are likely to want in the future as lifestyles change."

Mrs Parnell, 42, said she is excited about the project: "I know that during the monitoring periods our every movement will be captured by the sensors linked to the computer.

"Everyone will know how long I lie soaking in my sunken bath watching television or if one of the children slinks down to the fridge in the middle of the night."