B1 - Group D Jiaao Wu

HVAC

HVAC, also known as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning is one of the most important factors for energy use after the building is constructed, which will account for 39% of the energy used in commercial buildings in the United States. Thus, energy saving in the HVAC systems would become a great criteria for an intelligent building.  According to the Whole Building Design Code (WBDG), " the use of high performance HVAC equipment can result in considerable energy, emissions, and cost savings (10%-40%)." It is indeed a great amount of energy saving. There are actually four main design recommendations for high performance HVAC systems including: Consider all aspects of the building simultaneously; Decide on design goals as early as possible; Plan for future expansion instead of greatly oversizing the equipment. However, are high performance HVAC systems the only way or method to improve the efficiency of HVAC systems? This will lead to the next topic: sensors.

Sensors

When people talking about sensors, the first thought will be acoustic, sound and vibration sensors. How could intelligent buildings take advantage of these sensors. In my opinion, sensor is a prerequisite to a smart building, since those sensors are just like humans' skins, hands, eyes and ears. The function of those sensors is to monitor and collect the data of the building. Nowadays, there are already a lot of sensors which have been used in a building such as thermostat, electric meter, smoke sensors, CO sensors, relative humidity and so on. However, there are still a lot of new types of sensors needed to make the building intelligent. All these new types can provide a more comprehensive data. And all these data will stored in database.

Database

Most of the data in the database will be collected from the building sensors, as I have stated before. The database is like the foundation of the smart building. The analysis of the building condition depends on the data integrity which depends on the database. A database could help the developers to write a algorithm to control the building condition. And this will depend on the Artificial Intelligent (AI).

AI

AI, also known as artificial intelligent, refers to a device which can "think". Nowadays, a lot of researches have been made to install artificial intelligent on robots. People want to make robots be able to think themselves, and serve people. These artificial intelligent can also be installed in smart buildings. Using the database I have mentioned above, artificial intelligent system can "understand" what is going on with the building. Is the building too cold or too hot? What is the occupancy of the building? Thus, does the building need more fresh air? All these functions help people to stay more comfortable in the building.  From my perspective, this is how artificial intelligence could work in a smart building. It knows human beings' needs and automatically control the condition of the building as well as accomplish the purpose of energy savings,

Future

All I have discussed above means the intelligent buildings in the future. First of all, the intelligent building needs various sensors to collect different data about the building. Then all the collected data will be stored in the building database. These database could be shared according to the different building types. And the database will analyzed by the artificial intelligent system to determine the building conditions and following actions will be taken automatically. This process can be used in different components of the building. HVAC could be a good example. In addition, water supplying, electric supplying and other components could take advantage of the intelligent process. This is the future of the intelligent buildings.

Comment:

Comment to Yanzhao
I agree Yanzhao's comment that HVAC system is essential to an intelligent building. As I have stated in my post, a lot of energy could be saved if the HVAC system is improved. And after the building is constructed, HVAC system will account for the most cost.


Comment to Mark
I like Mark's way to describe sensors and database. He wrote an example that Nest Labs collected a database and the analyzed it to "learn" the temperature preference of any given time of day. This is exactly what I am thinking how would sensors and database work.


Comment to Jonathan
Jonathan used the example of Nest to talking about the relationship between HVAC, sensor, database, AI and future. I like his way of analysis. This gives me a feeling of more integrity, and gives me a better understanding of Nest and Revolv.

References:

High Performance HVAC
http://www.wbdg.org/resources/hvac.php

Building Sensors and Energy Monitoring Systems
https://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/residential/pdfs/5_building_sensors_healy.pdf

A Multi-Sensor Office-building Database for Experimental Validation and Advanced Control Algorithm Development.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187705091400725X