Application of a multi-field sensor into an office building

Digital development, sustainability, safety and comfort are of the foremost importance in the current building industry in the light of decarbonization. It is well known that if a building has automatically controlled blinds, fan-coils, AHU’s and lighting the building owner will experience an important drop in the running costs. This does not just result in money savings, but also in avoiding waste of fuels, water and electricity, and reducing the environmental impact and global warming. In this work, the installation and testing of a new multi-field sensor is discussed and analyzed. As well as interacting with the occupant, the sensor hub is the brain of the room: triggering actual occupancy, monitoring the light level, temperature and humidity, it would impact raising thermal comfort and lowering consumption. The case study analysis focuses on the application of this technology, collecting and elaborating data from four of these devices installed in four different rooms of a co-working office space in Turin. Results show that the hub’s precision is strictly dependent on its position (height and centralization respect to the room), on neighboring obstacles and on airflow. So, a calibration is needed to have the most precise measurements at the desired height. The possibilities that are opened by this type of sensors in the interaction between people, systems and environment are multiple and some of them were investigated in this context.