Portable Sensor Suitcase for Building Energy Retro-Commissioning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Small commercial buildings often lack retro-commissioning due to perceived complexity and cost, despite accounting for significant energy consumption, leading to inefficiencies in energy usage and system performance.
Innovation Solution
A portable 'Retro-Commissioning Sensor Suitcase' system that includes sensor devices and a base system for collecting and analyzing building environment data, such as temperature, lighting, and HVAC operational modes, to provide recommendations for improving energy efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If retro-commissioning is performed using traditional methods, then building energy efficiency can be improved, but the process becomes too complex and costly for small commercial buildings
Solution Approach 1:
The retro-commissioning process is segmented into discrete, manageable tasks performed by portable sensor devices. Each device independently collects specific environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, light, motion) and the system processes results in staged intervals rather than requiring comprehensive simultaneous measurement across the entire building.
Solution Approach 2:
A portable base system acts as an intermediary between simple sensor devices and complex analysis requirements. The base system receives data from multiple sensors, performs initial processing and storage, and enables remote access via wireless communication, bridging the gap between basic data collection and sophisticated energy optimization analysis.
2Measurement precision
If comprehensive sensor deployment is implemented for accurate data collection, then measurement precision improves, but device complexity and resource requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor devices are designed as universal, multi-functional units that can measure multiple environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, light intensity, motion) simultaneously. Each portable device serves multiple measurement purposes, eliminating the need for separate specialized sensors for each parameter and reducing overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The sensor devices are self-contained and autonomous, with built-in processing capabilities that allow them to independently collect, store, and transmit their own data. The devices require minimal external configuration or control, performing self-service functions that reduce the complexity of system integration and management.
Data Source
AI summary
Building environment data collection systems and methods are described. According to one aspect, a system includes a plurality of sensor devices which store different types of environment data, a base system comprising a plurality of interface devices configured to receive the environment data from the sensor devices, storage circuitry configured to store the environment data, and communications circuitry configured to implement communications, and a user interface apparatus comprising communications circuitry configured to communicate with the communications circuitry of the base system, a user interface configured to receive user inputs during installation of the sensor devices, and processing circuitry configured to control the user interface to generate the displayed information and to process the user inputs received via the user interface, and wherein different ones of the sensor devices are configured to generate the different types of environment data as a result of the user inputs.