Project Profile

The issue of the energy efficiency of buildings has now assumed central importance in the debate on energy policies in the most industrialised countries. One of the possible technological solutions to improve energy consumption in buildings is represented by the use of intelligent and integrated systems of management, monitoring and automation capable of regulating in real time the functions of the building, considering all the interactions and optimising the services according to fixed criteria and able to be refined over time. Smart buildings represent the technology of the future: they are automated, interactive and connected to networks.

The project has the objective of contributing both to scientific and technological development and to the social promotion of automated and integrated systems for the monitoring and management of smart buildings, with the aim of improving their energy performance based on the demands of users and particular energy-environmental conditions. In particular, the aim of the project is to develop an intelligent control system for residential buildings easily integrated, adapted and scaled through the use of miniaturised devices and radio wave communication channels (wireless solutions) or which use the distribution line of electrical energy (Power Line solutions).

More specifically, the research is centred in both hardware and software, in relation to the three fundamental blocks which make up the system for smart buildings conceived within the project, and which can be schematised in the following way:

• Field devices (sensors and actuators), which allow the detection and measurement of the status conditions of the monitored system and action on it;
• The central control unit (UCC), which receives the monitoring data from the sensors and imparts the potential commands to the actuators in an automated and intelligent way, based on software algorithms developed specifically or in response to requests from the user;
• The user interface devices, which allow the visualisation of the energy consumption of the system to be monitored, and the offering at the same time of the possibility to act on the control system.

The solution proposed also provides for the control and intelligent management of a system of accumulation, potentially associated with the use of a system of energy generation from renewable sources.

This choice indeed allows the optimisation of the flexibility and efficiency of the electrical networks by virtue of the demands dictated by the evolutionary processes which concern the systems of generation and distribution of electrical energy and the diversification of final uses.