A Smart City needs - Smart Buildings, Smart Service Providers, Smart Electricity Meters, Smart Water Meters, Smart Traffic and Road Safety Management, Smart Waste Management, Smart Security...
Now, the challenge is - existing cities and new and upcoming ones. Well... it would be relatively easier to incorporate everything "smart" in a new city but what do we do about the existing cities. The question is - How do we connect and bring in all the diverse and proprietary systems be it the heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), the lighting, power, plumbing and water, if ONLY they are always deployed in a building. Well... the solution is simple - Building Automation System (BAS).
If a BAS is not deployed in a commercial and / or industrial building then there is a need to deploy that in the first instance and to be "smart building owners" and "smart facilities operators". Now, in the event, the building owners and /or facilities operators have been "smart" and have an existing BAS deployed then there is need to protect that investment and keep capital expenditure (CAPEX) to minimal.
The point to be noted herein is - A standard BAS has its own limitations and can normally manage and maintain individual systems but may not be really able to interlink between systems and hence not able to leverage the BAS infrastructure to report a status change in one system. For example, a standard BAS may not be really able to modify the operations of a lighting system or a HVAC unit based and thus optimize energy usage and consumption based on the say the number of people in an office or a commercial building.
To be truly "smart", we need a modern BAS with basic requirements that include:
- Device-to-Device Connectivity and Data Exchange
- Remote Manageability
- High Reliability
- End-to-end Hardware and Software Security
The Solution, perhaps, is - to look at Internet of Things (IoT) and incorporate a BAS Gateway that supports multi-communication protocols to provide connectivity between the device networks and the backend infrastructure network to the existing BAS. Furthermore, the BAS Gateway also needs to have a monitoring framework which is cost-effective.
Today, BAS gateways are available that can connect to various sensors say - a Smart Parking sensor, Office Air Quality sensor, Environment sensor (checks on the CO2 levels, temperature, humidity, etc.), Energy Management sensor, etc. all over a wireless (WiFi) network to the existing BAS. Once deployed, these sensors can and will help measure and realize energy and cost savings over the lifetimes of buildings.
The benefit for us in India today, is that we do not have too much automation in our buildings and building processes, so we can actually jump-start couple of steps on our journey and dream to create "Smart Cities". It very much possible to "convert" existing buildings into "Smart Buildings" and "build" new "Smart Buildings" using Internet of Things (IoT).
Smart Buildings is the First Step to A Smart City!!
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