Improving energy-efficiency in building automation with event-driven radio

Sensor, actuator, and radio constitute the three basic components in a building automation system. Among all the three, radio consumes a significant part of the total power. In this paper, an ultra-low power event-driven radio is proposed as a solution to minimize the power consumption of a building automation system. Generic system architecture is formalized according to the application scenario. Event-driven radio is compared against other commercial low power radios. Our analysis shows that significant energy efficiency enhancement is achieved by an event-driven radio. Based on the state of the art micro power technology, possibility of implementing autonomous radio is also investigated in the building automation scenario.