Smart Building Automation System

Abstract

The technological advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and sensors has brought about revolutionary changes in building management systems. Building operators are now able to manage buildings remotely using the cloud. A building is no longer meant to just provide us shelter and protect us from cold and animals. It is also capable of delivering the required services to the residents. Smart building automation provides an integrated view in controlling the building subsystem domains. It offers a unified approach in monitoring, energy management, data analytics, fault detection, and diagnostics. The automation systems can monitor several parameters in real time, analyze the historical data, and control the devices to provide maximum comfort to the occupants. By interconnecting all the data from the devices on to the cloud, real-time analytics can be run using AI and the required action is determined. The most predominant use of automation in building is in controlling lighting, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; in fire detection; by providing security; in reducing energy consumption by providing efficient energy management systems; in minimizing the maintenance costs; and in reducing the building’s impact on environment. Automation thus optimizes the assets usage and resource consumption. Hence, the combination of IoT and AI makes smart building even smarter and intelligent. The performance of smart building and automation system using AI mainly depends on the sensors and actuators that need to be placed at various locations all over the building and on their connectivity over the network. The sensors are required to collect various parameters like pressure, relative humidity, temperature, lighting, and others that are prevalent in the building. The data thus collected by the sensors are used to control the physical devices in the building. This chapter highlights smart building architecture, technologies required to build smart building, building automation system, and benefits and drawbacks in incorporating technologies in buildings.