IoT solution for monitoring indoor climate parameters in open space offices

Abstract

Although there are numerous high performance BMS (Building Management System), which monitor the indoor climate parameters, data access, sensor positioning, and other aspects may not be under control. On the other hand, IoT (Internet of Things) is experiencing exponential growth, as more and more devices and sensors are connected to the cloud. Thus, a sensor monitoring solution for indoor climate parameters was developed. The proposed solution is not expensive, and it is based on a Raspberry Pi board endowed with temperature, humidity, and pressure sensors. The developed application reads the values detected by the sensors, processes the date, and afterwards transmit the information to the IoT ThingSpeak platform. The large area is characteristic of open space offices, so the influence of radiant walls is small, and the operative temperature can be approximate with air temperature. This type of building is conditioned by the air conditioning system, so the air speed in this indoor environment is usually low and could be approximated by the design. So, with the data read by the developed solution the thermal comfort parameters can be approximated. If inadequate values are found, teams that carry out complex and precise measurements could be sent to the site. To achieve this goal a PMV calculator software is developed. Its validity is tested in accordance with the European standard ISO 7730. After that, the PMV computer is used with data read from sensors. Both the data read from the sensors and the newly calculated PMV are sent to the ThingSpeak IoT platform.