Wireless sensor networks in building automation systems

Abstract: Tiny devices communicating wirelessly, also called wireless sensor networks, have developed rapidly the last few years. As the devices have been more energy efficient and more reliable new application areas have become interesting, one of them is building automation systems. Retrotting and additional temperature measurements are two interesting application areas to make the building automation systems more cost and energy efficient. The aim for the work preformed has been to investigate the possibility of integrating wireless networks with existing building automation systems using open and widely used standards. The work process has involved evaluating existing business automation protocols. Each protocol has then been evaluated from an energy consumption perspective. The major dierent wireless technologies have been described in relation to the sensor networks. Finally a proof of concept implementation has been developed on a wireless sensor network connecting to a building automation system. The implementation has been made on the Contiki operating system, a lightweight operating system for small devices. The work described in this master thesis shows that the Contiki operation systems with BACnet can be used to enhance existing building automation systems with wireless sensor network support. All listed protocols however lacks functionality for reducing number of messages required for protocol comparability (and reducing power consumption).