Building Automation

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Building Automation using WSNs

Building automation was identified, a few years ago, as an effective way of achieving (a) efficient long-term building management and (b) considerable reductions in building energy costs. Some already installed building automation systems (BAS) have successfully achieved between 20% to 80% reductions in energy cost, increased occupant security/safety, increased occupant comfort and a reduction in building operations cost. Although several BAS have been installed so far, they have not yet achieved significant market penetration nor have they been utilized to their full potential. This is due to the existence of several unresolved issues like:

  • interoperability between individual sub-systems like HVAC control, lighting control etc.
  • use of wireless sensors that facilitate reduced installation/wiring cost
  • increased information sharing between the various sub-systems
  • integration with installed IT enterprise networks
  • better application modeling and deployment toolkits
  • increased system reliability
  • better algorithms and optimization techniques
  • real time monitoring and analysis


We try to address some of these issues by exploring the feasibility of using WSNs for building automation. The use of wireless sensor networks for building automation enables high-density sensing and control at lower operational costs and could therefore enable more efficient building management. The figure, above, shows an example of a WSN deployment for building automation.

Related Work

Utility-based Multi-Application Deployment Environment

Sensors

Applications

   * Building access controls
   * HVAC controls
   * Lighting controllers
   * Thermostat
   * Lifts / Elevators
   * Escalators
   * Remote alarm triggering
   * Water Management
   * Electrical blinds


Resources

Echelon recently completed a year-long investigation of these technologies, and our findings were very different than we expected. We expected to test high-performance, highly reliable twisted pair replacements, but found just the opposite: the new RF technologies offered very poor robustness against sources of interference, very limited distance operation, mediocre battery performance, and in one case, response times slower than sneaker net.

Companies

News Articles

People

This work is being conducted by PhD students Sangeeta Bhattacharya and Chien-Liang Fok, under the guidance of Dr. Chenyang Lu and Dr. Gruia-Catalin Roman.

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