Co-design of Wireless Sensor-Actuator Networks for building controls

A Building Automation System (BAS) aims to provide good user comfort within occupied zones in a building. One can enhance the functionality of a BAS through embedding advanced control strategies within a Wireless Sensor/Actuator Network (WSAN), and also make retrofit applications possible. However, control systems that are embedded in a WSAN can perform sub-optimally if the control system and WSAN are designed independently. In this context, we develop a co-design approach for embedding BAS code within a Network Control System. We compare our developed system for building lighting control with (a) a standard PI control method to empirically demonstrate a 19% reduction in energy use and 65% improvement in user comfort, and (b) an MPC strategy that uses only presence-based control, to show 25% reduction in energy use. Our approach also improves network delay and sensor battery usage by 68% over the PI baseline.