Sustainability of a university campus, and in particular energetic sustainability, relies on the efficiency and smartness of the energy systems, as well as the behavior of campus users (student, faculty, staff).
Much literature is available about the solutions for creating smart buildings, and improving energy efficiency and co-generation. Likewise, social studies of behavior in smart homes and cities are also available, but the two aspects have seldom been considered jointly.
The goal of the thesis is to experiment, in a "living lab" setting, the integration of information gathered by Building Management Systems (BMS), such as energy metering, environmental monitoring, activity scheduling, etc., with data provided by the analysis of user behavior (crowdsensing), e.g., when interacting with university services, when accessing the mobile campus network, when checking in specific locations.
The thesis developed an integrated system, able to gather information from BMS sensors and from crowd sensors, and apply data fusion to construct a complete vision of the system. Such knowledge can be used to provide, with a Living Lab methodology, some information back to the system users, in order to (a) improve their awareness and (b) stimulate behavioral changes.
The designed system has been evaluated through a prototype implementation and the installation in some actual space within the campus (e.g., a study room).
The thesis proceeded in the following, partially overlapping, phases:
- Identification of suitable BMS sensing data, by interacting with the Campus services
- Identification of suitable crowdsensing data, by exploring possible options supported by IoT and mobile technologies
- Literature analysis about crowdsensing, and about user behavior in smart energy systems
- Design and implementation of an integrated information management system (data warehouse or similar)
- Design and prototyping of a small set of BMS sensors interfaces and crowdsensing interfaces, able to populate the realized system
- Design and prototyping of a visualization/behavioral change stimulation interface for end-users
- Installation of the system in the chosen campus area