Overview

In a Smart City, major technological systems, such as information and communication systems, smart grid, and transportation will be incorporated into a massive network that would together efficiently use available resources within the city. A major component of such a city is smart buildings, where people will spend more than 80 percent of their lives. Smart buildings are characterized by the integrated design, deployment, and control of various important subsystems, such as lighting, heating, ventilating and cooling, water supply, utilities, and security. The integration of these different subsystems will enable the sharing of information among them which will in turn result in the joint optimization of resource utilization within each building. Here we focus on the design of operation and control techniques for smart buildings. The goal of the Smart Buildings and a Smart City Cluster is to provide a holistic early solution to the smart city problem that will make it competitive for early grants. The short-term goal is to focus on a smaller scale and develop efficient hardware and software solutions for a small cluster of smart buildings.