Project report: new generation intelligent building platform techniques

As one of the most important parts of infrastructure supporting daily life of human society, buildings’ efficient and safe operation is a critical issue. Just taking building energy consumption as an example, buildings contribute a significant part of the total energy consumption in many developed and developing countries. For example, in 2016, buildings (residential and commercial sectors) consume about 40% of the total energy and 70% of the electricity in the United States, according to the annual energy review of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=86&t=1). The numbers in EU and other developed countries are also similar (https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-efficiency/buildings) (Berardi 2015). In China, the energy consumption in buildings has risen from 10% to 25% of the overall energy consumption of the country since 1978, and is predicted to be increased to 35% in the coming years (Jia et al. 2014).

However, the efficient and safe operation control and management of buildings is extremely challenging due to the strong dependence of building performances on continuously varying functionalities of buildings, occupant behaviors, outdoor environments, diversified structure and building materials, customized operation management strategies, and so on. Thus, the intelligent building control and management is by nature a cross-disciplinary research, and requires one to use the knowledge (such as models on building dynamics, occupant behaviors, and outdoor environments) and the methodology (such as optimization and online decision-making theory) from multiple fields.

In recent decades, the fast development of information technology has significantly changed the engineering, economical, and social fields of human society. The research on smart buildings also thrives, although most of our current buildings are still working in an out-of-date manner. Utilizing modern information and control technology (ICT) to rebuild the information infrastructure of buildings has fundamental effects on the research of smart buildings. Since building is a very important part of the whole energy system in human world, the combination of informatics and energy plays a significant role in the research of efficient management and operation of modern buildings. The research of smart buildings in China is developing fast. However, the deployment of building management systems (BMS) in China still needs numerous efforts to make it become a standard. The current BMS is in a centralized form and it requires a lot of manpower to make configurations during the deployment. The scalability and robustness are also potential concerns. How to treat these challenges is an interesting research topic.

Governments and societies all over the world pay more and more attention to the research and development of smart buildings. There are numerous research projects on smart buildings that have been or being conducted worldwide. For example, the Information Society of European Commission has sponsored a series of projects (35 projects listed on the official website of EU, see (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/funding/prj_buidings/index_en.htm) for more information) to support the sustainable growth of Europe. These projects aim at applying ICT to buildings for energy saving and intelligent management. The NSF of the U.S. also launched a series of research projects in smart buildings, e.g., a $2-million grant was funded to scholars of MIT and Boston University to explore substantial carbon footprint and energy cost reductions in buildings (https://www.bu.edu/sustainability/nsf-greenlights-sustainable-building-project/). Compared to these projects, the main feature of our project is the decentralized framework, which is a beneficial exploration of self-organization, scalability, and robustness of ICT in smart buildings (Fig. 1).

Although China is still a developing country, China has a fast investment rate of infrastructure construction all over the world. For the sector of building industry, China has more than 50% of the constructed super high-rise buildings in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings) and more are under construction. The combination of informatics and energy is a very important viewpoint to study the management and operation of modern buildings. The Chinese government has realized the importance of buildings in the whole energy system and research & development. A lot of research grants and programs are being announced, according to the national 5-years research plan of China. These emerging research activities also contribute a lot to the invention and development of new industrial opportunities.