EnPROVE Energy consumption prediction with building usage measurements for software ... ·...

FP7-ICT-2009-4-248061

EnPROVE

Energy consumption prediction with building usage measurements for software-based decision support

Instrument: Small or medium-scale focused research project

Thematic Priority: Theme 3 – Information and Communication Technologies

D5.3 INTEGRATION COMPONENTS

Due date of deliverable: 31.03.2012

Actual submission date: 03.04.2012

Start date of project: 01.02.2010 Duration: 36 months

Organisation name of lead contractor for this deliverable: GEM

Dissemination level: PU

Revision 1

EnPROVE D5.3 Integration Components

of 24

Executive Summary

This document presents deliverable D5.3 Integration components. This deliverable describes the implementation and integration efforts related to software components needed for the completion and integration of the BAU-WSN and EPDSS systems.

The first section presents a general overview over the developed components and their relative contexts within the EnPROVE system. It introduces the two main systems of EnPROVE: the Energy Prediction and Decision Support System (EPDSS) and the Building Performance and Usage Auditing and Wireless Sensor Network (BAU-WSN) and the main actors involved in the EnPROVE process performance, namely the technical consultant, the auditing contractor and the investor.

The functional components for the BAU-WSN are the wireless sensor network and the Building Performance & Usage Server.

The functional components for the EPDSS are the Scenario Creation, Prediction Engine, Decision Support and Solution Specification all embedded in the Project Assistant Graphical User Interface that controls the workflow of the EPDSS.

The second section describes the individual software components developed during the implementation and integration phases of the project that are not covered in any other of the previous deliverables, which are the dashboard (from the BAU-WSN) and the project assistant (from the EPDSS). As underlying technologies have already been described in previous deliverables (D5.2 Energy Saving Prediction and Decision Support Tool, D6.1 Integration Components) the emphasis lies in the description of the user workflow and graphical user interface presentation of yet undescribed features. The administrative functionality of the EPDSS project assistant and the BAU-WSN system dashboard like login, user and project management are covered as well as additional functionality to perform the needed steps of an application of EnPROVE process.


of 24

Abbreviations

BAU Building Usage and Performance Auditing

D Deliverable

e.g. exempli gratia = for example

EC European Commission

EPDSS Energy prediction and decision support engine

etc. et cetera

GUI Graphical user interface

i.e. id est = that is to say

ICT Information and Communications Technologies

EnPROVE Energy consumption prediction with building usage measurements for software-based decision support

M Month

MS Milestone

RTD Research and Technological Development

S&T Scientific & Technological

STREP Small or medium-scale focused research project

w.r.t. With respect to

WP Workpackage

WSN Wireless Sensor Network


of 24

Contents

1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 5

1.1 BAU WSN internal component integration overview ......................................................... 6

1.2 EPDSS internal component integration overview .............................................................. 7

2 User workflow and related components ................................................................................... 9

2.1 System Dashboard ........................................................................................................... 9

2.1.1 Connection ................................................................................................................ 9

2.1.2 Administrator Interface ............................................................................................. 10

2.1.3 Auditing contractor Interface .................................................................................... 13

2.1.4 End user Interface ................................................................................................... 17

2.1.5 Alerts system ........................................................................................................... 17

2.2 Project Assistant ............................................................................................................. 18

2.2.1 Project Information ................................................................................................... 19

2.2.2 Auditing ................................................................................................................... 20

2.2.3 Solution Specification .............................................................................................. 22

3 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 24


of 24

1 Introduction

The objective of EnPROVE is to help an owner or administrator of a building to find and evaluate useful and cost-efficient renovation scenarios and to support the decision process for scenario to be implemented.

When the term assessment project is used it refers to the EnPROVE representation of a building renovation project and the EnPROVE processes involved.

An assessment project is operated on by several actors that access the system for different purposes during different phases of its execution. There are three key actors that use the EnPROVE platform to process a project. The technical consultant who can be viewed as the assessment project manager, the auditing contractor who is in charge of the work related to the sensory building auditing on site and the investor who contracts the technical consultant regarding the renovation project.

The EnPROVE platform consists of two major systems (see Figure 1):

The Building Performance and Usage Auditing (BAU) includes a wireless sensor network (WSN) deployed in the building to be renovated, connected to local gateways that transmit data to the remote building performance and usage server, which processes this.

The Energy Prediction and Decision Support System (EPDSS) responsible for interacting with the technical consultant to extrapolate the data collected from the building and predict energy consumption for several possible technical solutions, and enable the investor in selecting the best renovation scenario considering tangible (e.g. return on investment) and intangible (e.g. comfort level) criteria.

EPDSS DBBAU DB

WSN DB

WSNGateway

WSNGateway

EnPROVE Platform

Building Performance & Usage Server

EPDSSServer

Processed Data

WSN DB

Raw Data

WSN DB

Raw Data

Raw Data

Remote siteBuilding on-site

Raw Data

WirelessSensor

Network

Figure 1: EnPROVE platform overview.


of 24

The EnPROVE platform can communicate with some external systems (AutoCAD, Revit, Active3D) to import building information and export the renovation scenario selected for implementation. For the control flow communication between the EPDSS and these external systems (AutoCAD, Revit, Active3D), as well as the communication between the EPDSS and the BAU-WSN system there is a common Communication-Services interface that manages requests by the EPDSS system for building model data or auditing with the respective system. The server for these communication processes is the EPDSS system, while both the external and the BAU-WSN system clients poll for requests.

For the extraction of auditing results from the BAU-WSN by the EPDSS, another server/client pairing is used. This time the server is located at the BAU-WSN side and the EPDSS client is requesting auditing data through a dedicated interface.

These interfaces have already been described in previous deliverables (D6.1 BAU-WSN and EPDSS Integration Framework) along with the general integration of the two partial systems.

1.1 BAU WSN internal component integration overview

The BAU-WSN represents one of the crucial parts in the EnPROVE platform, where it performs raw data collection, refines data representation, and provides building performance information in a form that can be used by the EPDSS server.

BAU-WSN Interaction

Figure 2: EnPROVE BAU-WSN Interaction.

As shown in Figure 2, the interaction within BAU-WSN takes place between the WSN database, the Building Performance & Usage Server, and the BAU database.


of 24

1. Wireless sensor networks are deployed in the buildings to perform raw data measurements, which comprise luminance, temperature, presence, and lighting usage. The raw data collection, which is time-configurable, provides an initial representation of energy consumption profile in the building environment. As for this purpose, a WSN database is installed on each single local gateway for data aggregation. However, due to the size of the building and the scale of the auditing task, multiple gateways and WSN databases are required. To facilitate the process of building usage performance calculation, a single raw WSN database is built on the remote-site, which aggregates the raw data collection performed by each Wireless Sensor Network gateway.

2. A centralized raw data collection, which aggregates the overall data measurements collected in a building, is realised by the WSN database on the remote site. A Java program, which is integrated with each local WSN gateway, performs this data transaction. The WSN database, which resides on the remote-site, provides aggregated raw data collection as inputs required for the Building Performance & Usage Server.

3. In order to be able to predict the building usage performance, the EPDSS server requires minute-based auditing information, which cannot be provided by the WSN database on the remote-site. This is due to the reason that the timestamps are not minute-based during WSN raw data collection. Thus, the Building Performance Usage Server takes in raw data collection from WSN DB as inputs, and outputs the average results into the BAU database.

4. A further post processing component allows the data to be refined and averaged per zone in order to be ready to be analyzed by the EPDSS. This component is responsible for merging the sensors of same type present within the same zone and perform some sensor cross-correlation processing within the same minute for example to infer whether the zone is occupied, the light is ON or OFF. This process is realised by a Java program integrated with the Building Performance & Usage Server.

1.2 EPDSS internal component integration overview

The internal structure of the EPDSS components is shown in Figure 3.


of 24

Common EPDSS prototype database

EPDSS Server

Project Assistant

Projects Database

Strategy, Solution, Product

Database

Configur-ation

Database

Auditing Web Services Interface (Communication control server+ Auditing Results client)

GUI Web Services Interface External Plugins Web Services Interface

GUI ClientExternal System Plugin

Client

Auditing System(Communication control client

+ Auditing results server)Data Model

Database Persistence Interface

Scenario Creation

Prediction

Decision

GUI Interface

GUI Interface GUI Interface

GUI Web Services Provider

Solution Specification

GUI Interface

Figure 3: EPDSS components.

The five modules depicted in Figure 3 are:

Scenario Creation is used to define the existing baseline scenario and the possible renovation scenarios to be evaluated.

Prediction Engine is invoked by scenario creation to predict the performance of each renovation scenario.

Decision Support module guides the investor through the process of selecting the renovation scenario to be implemented.

Solution Specification module documents the selected scenario.

Project Assistant module supplies the administrative functionality to control the user workflow and external communication and the graphical user interface (GUI) to let the user specify the assessment project details.

The functional modules Scenario Creation, Prediction Engine, Decision Support and Solution Specification along with the Project Assistant module all access a common java data model. Instead of three distinct databases for project instance data, system library and knowledgebase data and local system configuration data, the prototype implementation uses a common database to store the related data. The functional modules define interfaces to be used by the Project Assistant module to invoke their functionality from the GUI. The Project Assistant controls the overall user workflow and interfaces each GUI component with the corresponding EPDSS functionality it needs to access. The Project Assistant also includes the external interfaces.


of 24

2 User workflow and related components

2.1 System Dashboard

The system online dashboard empowers the auditing contractor with a tool to install, configure and maintain a WSN in a building. The online feature allows the contractor to access the WSN state from anywhere and at anytime simply through an internet browser.

2.1.1 Connection

Figure 4: BAU-WSN contractor login session.

As shown in Figure 4, the contractor can access the private dashboard by inserting username and password in the login session. The dashboard provides a functionality to reset the password in case the user has inadvertently forgot it. Should this happen, by clicking on the given link the contractor will be prompted with a request to enter his/her email address, as shown in Figure 5. The online BAU-WSN dashboard compares the email address provided against the list of registered users and if the email is registered, it will reset the password corresponding to that email address. A notification with new credentials is then sent by email.

Figure 5: Reset password functionality.

The dashboard provides three kind of users :

Administrator: an administrator has super-user rights and can create new EnPROVE sites, add or modify user accounts as well as reassign contractors to different sites. He can also add or modify the different kind of devices available in the auditing contractor interface.

Auditing Contractor: an auditing contractor is assigned to one or several sites and can


of 24

add, edit, remove gateways from them and manage the devices sending data to the gateway(s). He can also see with a two dimensions interface showing the WSN health deployed in the site.

End User: an end user has access to the same interface as an auditing contractor except that he cannot add/update/remove any gateways, zones or devices. It is a read-only account.

2.1.2 Administrator Interface

Once logged-in, the home page in Figure 6 is shown, which currently describes the dashboard and welcome note the user. The page provides links to download the user manual and other useful information of how to best use the dashboard.

Figure 6: BAU-WSN contractor homepage.

Figure 7 shows a typical list of active users as seen by an administrator. The right-hand site of the figures shows the functionalities to create a new contractor user, view, edit and retire individual contractors according to the business.

Figure 7: BAU-WSN active contractors admin session screenshot.


of 24

The dashboard provides functionalities to search BAU-WSN users that are active on certain sites or retired. Figure 8 shows a search result list of retire BAU-WSN contractors with functionalities to view the details and activate/de-activate the contractor account.

Figure 8: Retire BAU-WSN contractors admin screenshot.

By clicking on the “edit” link, the administrator can change the details of the contractor, assign the user role, which are linked to the dashboard user privileges, set email and password as shown in Figure 9. A similar online form is also presented by clicking on the “New User link” as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 9: User right edit and details admin screenshot.

Figure 10: Create new BAU-WSN contractor user admin screenshot.

By clicking on “Sites” on the main tab, the user is prompted with the dashboard functionalities for managing the sites. Figure 11 shows a list of sites, which includes location details and functionalities to view, edit, assign and retire the sites. In order to initiate a new site in case of an audit request from the EPDSS side, there is a component that imports new zones from the EPDSS


of 24

to a newly created BAU-WSN data base.

Figure 11: Active sites admin screenshot.

The edit and view functionalities are shown in Figure 12, which includes also a description of the site, such as particular information useful for the BAU-WSN contractor (for example a site access details). There is also the possibility to import a map of the site, this one will be used in the auditing contractor interface. A similar online form is also presented by clicking on the “New Site” as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 12: Edit/View Sites admin screenshot.

Figure 13: Admin create a new site screenshot.

Figure 14 shows a screenshot of the site assignation functionality which allows to link an user (auditing contractor or end user) to a site. The dashboard allows listing the active/assigned contractors to assist the administrator choosing between the available contractor resources to be


of 24

assigned to a site. By clicking on the button “Apply”, the site gets assigned to a specified contractor, who is then notified by email of a new job.

Figure 14: Admin site assignation screenshot.

Once the site is created and assigned to a user (auditing contractor or end user), this one is able to connect to the dashboard and access either the auditing contractor interface or the end user interface. The following section describes the Auditing contractor Interface.

2.1.3 Auditing contractor Interface

The functionalities of the dashboard are intended to assist the Auditing Contractor to dynamically setup, deploy and maintain a BAU-WSN in any given EnPROVE building. It also allows for certain unattended maintenance to be achieved which will help streamline sensor check-ups and post-deployment replacement if required.

An auditing contractor menu example is shown on the Figure 15. Similarly to an administrator login, there is a welcome note (home page). All sites assigned to the current user are listed. Once a site is selected, a sub-menu appears allowing different action for the current site.

Figure 15: Auditing contractor menu.

By clicking on “Site” on the sub-menu, the auditing contractor is prompted with a description of the current site selected as shown in Figure 16.


of 24

Figure 16: Site description.

By clicking on “Site” on the sub-menu, the auditing contractor is prompted with a list of the zones (previously created) describing the current site as shown in Figure 17. There is then the possibility to view, edit and remove every zones.

Figure 17: Site zones.

By clicking on “Gateways” on the sub-menu, the auditing contractor is prompted with a list of the gateways present on the current site as shown in Figure 18. There is then the possibility to view, edit, remove and add a gateway to the current site.


of 24

Figure 18: Site gateways.

By clicking on “Devices” on the sub-menu, the auditing contractor is prompted with a list of the devices present on the current site as shown in Figure 19. There is then the possibility to view, edit, de-activate the device. There is also the possibility to re-assign a device to a new zone.

To allow new sensors to be added in real-time, a new device linked to the gateway will dynamically appear at the top of the list waiting to get assigned to a zone by an auditing contractor.

Figure 19: Site devices.

By clicking on “WSN Management”, on the sub-menu, the auditing contractor is prompted with a map of the current site on which are displayed the devices as shown in Figure 20. On the map, the auditing contractor can drag and drop the devices on a particular site of the map and save their locations.


of 24

Figure 20: WSN Management map.

By clicking on a device icon on the map, a pop-up menu appears listing the sensor(s) of the device and their last recorded value, as shown in Figure 21.

Figure 21: WSN Management device details.

Each device node may have several sensors attached such as temperature, light, presence. By clicking on a particular sensor on the pop-up menu, a graph appears to display the last hour of sensor readings of the sensor, as shown in Figure 22. This allows the auditing contractor to have an immediate feedback of the wellness of the BAU-WSN during the real-time deployment.


of 24

Figure 22: Sensor last hour records.

2.1.4 End user Interface

The end-user interface allows the end user to view the BAU-WSN and its performance. The end user interface has the same look and feel and presents the same functionalities described in the previous section for the auditing contractor interface. However, in order to avoid accidental removal of data of misplacement of devices, the end-user interface is in read-only mode, i.e. the add, edit, remove, assign actions are disabled.

2.1.5 Alerts system

A background service is constantly running within the dashboard in order to check the state of the devices. If a device is not sending data for an adjustable time defined critical, e.g. a few minutes, the device state changes to “not reachable”. The device state is shown on the “Devices” page of the auditing contractor or directly on the map on the “WSN management” page (the not reachable devices are bumping).

In order to inform the auditing contractor of a possible malfunctioning of a device or sensor, an email alert is also sent to each auditing contractor assigned to the site. The contractor can disable this option from the “my account” section of the dashboard. Figure 23 shows an example of an e-mail alert.

Figure 23: Email alert example.


of 24

2.2 Project Assistant

The Project Assistant provides the EPDSS system’s administrative and structuring functionalities.

Figure 24: Project assistant main screen and login.

The main GUI application frame displays a status panel that shows the login in user, the current project and its status. Accessible from the status panel are the login, user data and project buttons which each invoking a dialog. The login dialog lets the user enter his user login name and password to log into the EPDSS system.

Figure 25: User data dialog.

The user data dialog enables the EPDSS administrator or technical consultant to define and add users or remove users from the system. Created users can then later be assigned to specific projects.


of 24

Figure 26: Project dialog.

The projects dialog lets the user select one of the projects he is assigned to as the currently active project and lets the EPDSS technical consultant create projects or edit project basic parameters.

The work panel below displays a list of action tabs that represent the main action steps during project processing. Depending on the status of the project and the role of the logged in user not all tabs might be active and available to the user.

2.2.1 Project Information

The functionality gathering under this tab enables the technical consultant to further specify project details.

Figure 27: Project users tab.

In the Users tab, the technical consultant can assign users to the project.


of 24

Figure 28: Building model request tab.

In the Bldg Model Request tab the technical consultant can request building model information from an external system (with installed EnPROVE plugin) and after delivery add the building model into the current project model.

Figure 29: Zone definition tab.

The Zone Definition tab lets the technical consultant and auditing consultant define or review a hierarchical zone partitioning of each storey in the building and assign basic parameters to the zones and related building elements (floors, walls, windows). Also for zones that are not to have any sensor deployment during auditing, suitable proxy zones can be defined, to function as placeholders for sensor data.

2.2.2 Auditing

This tab is providing functionality related to the request for auditing data, coordination with the BAU-WSN system and final post-processing of the auditing results.


of 24

Figure 30: Audit request tab.

The Audit Request tab lets the technical consultant specify and submit the request for the auditing process. Once the BAU-WSN system has signaled that the auditing has been successfully performed, the technical consultant can publish the results to the EPDSS system.

Figure 31: Schedule definition tab.

The Schedule Definition tab lets the technical consultant define usage schedules for the building and for specific zones.

The extrapolation of the auditing results to a full year is controlled and performed in the Extrapolation tab.


of 24

2.2.3 Solution Specification

The Solution Specification tab hosts the functionality to document a selected solution scenario by attaching pre-existing documents, generating and attaching tables and redlining the building model. The technical consultant will also see through generated tables and check the solution scenarios plausibility before publishing the documented solution.

Figure 32: Redlining tab.

The Redlining tabs 2D graphics panel lets the technical consultant add redlining information to the building model to help describe and visualize the chosen solution in an external system.

Figure 33: Tables tab.


of 24

The Tables tab lets the technical consultant choose which tables that describe the solution scenario will be generated as separate documents and added to the solution documentation.

Figure 34: Documents tab.

The Documents tab shows and lets the technical consultant manage the external documents that are added to the solution documentation.


of 24

3 Conclusion

The integration process of the EnPROVE system shows two relatively independent blocks of functionality. The EPDSS and the BAU-WSN system only interact by two lean interfaces. From the main integration components described in this document, only the communication components that support these interfaces build the overlap in software development between the EPDSS and the BAU-WSN. While the decoupling of the two development strands had its advantages regarding the EnPROVE development schedule, especially when looking at the coordination efforts of the EPDSS platform with its common data model, the differences of the two GUI implementations are immediately visible and signalize the different technologies used. Although this does not have impact on the functionality of the EnPROVE system, there might be the need for GUI harmonization when thinking about marketing a product.

As already described in the previous deliverable, the 2D-modelling tool to define zones is now part of the EPDSS system instead of the BAU-WSN system dashboard. The BAU-WSN system supplies additional functionality to visualize sensor deployment.

The next and final software implementation steps to be taken are to finalize the development of the external AutoCAD, Revit and Active3D plugins as will be documented in deliverable D6.2 AutoCAD and Revit Plug-ins, ACTIVE 3D Collaboration Platform Integration.

The ongoing life testing of the EnPROVE prototype at the Clarity research centre test site on the University College of Dublin (UCD) campus are necessary to tune and validate the EnPROVE platform systems functionalities as well as guiding and documenting the EnPROVE process application. These results will be documented in deliverables D6.1 Guidelines for Deployment and Integration of EnPROVE and D6.3 Overall System Performance.

While the tests at Clarity test site are focused on the lighting domain, a second test site at an office building in Warsaw will be used to cover a complete application regarding both the lighting and the HVAC domain.

EnPROVE Energy consumption prediction with building usage measurements for software ... ·...

Documents

Transcript of EnPROVE Energy consumption prediction with building usage measurements for software ... ·...