System for monitoring smart utilities
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Solution Overview
Problem
Technicians and building owners face difficulties in identifying the location of various smart utility equipment, such as chiller controllers and security devices, within buildings, which hinders maintenance and inventory management.
Innovation Solution
A system comprising smart utilities that communicate with a personal smart device over networks to return self-identifying information and activate identifying beacons, allowing the device to aggregate and forward this data to a building management system, facilitating the location of equipment through visual or audible identifiers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If technicians manually search for equipment locations, then they can maintain inventory information, but it becomes difficult to identify the installed location of various equipment
Solution Approach 1:
The smart utility devices automatically provide their own location information and activate identifying beacons when queried, eliminating the need for technicians to manually search for equipment. The devices self-identify through wireless communication and visual/audible beacons, making the location information readily available without manual intervention.
Solution Approach 2:
A personal smart device acts as an intermediary between technicians and smart utility devices. It communicates with multiple smart utilities, aggregates their location information, and presents it to technicians through a user interface, simplifying the equipment location process.
2Loss of information
If all smart utilities continuously transmit data, then complete information is available, but network traffic and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of continuous transmission, the system uses periodic or on-demand communication. The personal smart device queries smart utilities for their self-identifying information only when needed, and devices activate beacons temporarily in response to queries, reducing unnecessary energy consumption while ensuring information availability when required.
3Measurement precision
If technicians locate each piece of equipment individually, then precise location is achieved, but time consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The personal smart device aggregates location information from multiple smart utilities into a single consolidated display. Technicians can view the locations of multiple pieces of equipment simultaneously on one device, eliminating the need to individually locate each piece of equipment and significantly reducing time consumption while maintaining precise location information.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a system including one or more smart utilities, and a personal smart device configured to: communicate with the one or more smart utilities over one or more networks, instruct the one or more smart utilities to return self-identifying information, and instruct one or more of the one or more smart utilities, individually or as a subgroup, to activate an identifying beacon.