Smart building monitoring from structure to indoor environment

Abstract

Buildings became complex systems where there are various technologies integrated together and thus should work as a single system. Modern building has several monitoring and control systems which should cooperate together to achieve energy saving while keeping indoor comfort and healthy environment. The overall building management systems (BMS) provides an integrated way to gather data from the building and issue control commands to the installed technology. The parameters that are monitored in modern buildings are not only temperature and humidity but todays buildings monitor also concentration values of CO2 or volatile organic compounds (VOC). The experience from last decades shows necessity to monitor also the structure of the building. Renewable materials (wood) are today often used for building construction. This material is quite sensitive to environmental factors like humidity and the environment has to be monitored in order to avoid structural health problems in future. Specially timber when exposed to humidity or moisture can degrade quite quickly and can lose load capacity. Modern communication technologies allows installation of many sensors directly into the structure which allows continuous monitoring of the building construction as well as the indoor climate in the building. Internet of Things (IoT) allows new communication technologies providing low cost, low power sensor application within smartcity sector.