iGeneering

How often do we visit shopping mals, production facilities, banks, museums, swimming pools and gyms, hotels, hospitals and other pubblic places?

Have you noticed that in most of them it is never too hot or never too cold regardless of the outside weather, the season or the number of people inside?

How it comes that the air is always fresh there and that the lights turn magically on or the courtains magically close by itself exactly when it is needed?

This all is possible because of a magic called Building Automation (BA).

What is building automation?

Building automation is nothing else than a set of activities, technologies and devices which make possible all the listed above and more. It is one of things that barely gets noticed if it works as it should. And that is the way it should be.Co

So basically we put together a bunch of mechanical and electrical devices which treat air, water or manage light, like ventilators, dampers, valves, pumps, etc…. Combine them with different sensors which measure, environmental variables like temperature, pressure, humidity and different kinds of motors called actors to make them function.  At the end we connect everything to specialised computers called controllers which put a breath of life to all of these devices.

The mix of everything is called a control loop. A control loop is a system where the controller adjusts the functioning of all devices according to their output and the desired final state. For instance it makes sure the temperature of the room is constant, regardless of the weather, the number of present people and what they do.

What is the purpose?

The purpose is to make buildings user and environment friendly, to make them more energy efficient and to enable us to do things in a more efficient way or things we otherwise would not be able to do.

So it is a clever way to use available technologies to improve our everyday lives in many ways.