An IoT-Based Solution for Monitoring a Fleet of Educational Buildings Focusing on Energy Efficiency
Raising awareness among young people and changing their behaviour and habits concerning energy usage is key to achieving sustained energy saving. Additionally, young people are very sensitive to environmental protection so raising awareness among children is much easier than with any other group of...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2017-10-01
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| Series: | Sensors |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/10/2296 |
| _version_ | 1798041488550002688 |
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| author | Dimitrios Amaxilatis Orestis Akrivopoulos Georgios Mylonas Ioannis Chatzigiannakis |
| author_facet | Dimitrios Amaxilatis Orestis Akrivopoulos Georgios Mylonas Ioannis Chatzigiannakis |
| author_sort | Dimitrios Amaxilatis |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Raising awareness among young people and changing their behaviour and habits concerning energy usage is key to achieving sustained energy saving. Additionally, young people are very sensitive to environmental protection so raising awareness among children is much easier than with any other group of citizens. This work examines ways to create an innovative Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) ecosystem (including web-based, mobile, social and sensing elements) tailored specifically for school environments, taking into account both the users (faculty, staff, students, parents) and school buildings, thus motivating and supporting young citizens’ behavioural change to achieve greater energy efficiency. A mixture of open-source IoT hardware and proprietary platforms on the infrastructure level, are currently being utilized for monitoring a fleet of 18 educational buildings across 3 countries, comprising over 700 IoT monitoring points. Hereon presented is the system’s high-level architecture, as well as several aspects of its implementation, related to the application domain of educational building monitoring and energy efficiency. The system is developed based on open-source technologies and services in order to make it capable of providing open IT-infrastructure and support from different commercial hardware/sensor vendors as well as open-source solutions. The system presented can be used to develop and offer new app-based solutions that can be used either for educational purposes or for managing the energy efficiency of the building. The system is replicable and adaptable to settings that may be different than the scenarios envisioned here (e.g., targeting different climate zones), different IT infrastructures and can be easily extended to accommodate integration with other systems. The overall performance of the system is evaluated in real-world environment in terms of scalability, responsiveness and simplicity. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T22:22:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c6b148858f0c44c9ab8a44f90543c01a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T22:22:13Z |
| publishDate | 2017-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj.art-c6b148858f0c44c9ab8a44f90543c01a2022-12-22T04:00:02ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202017-10-011710229610.3390/s17102296s17102296An IoT-Based Solution for Monitoring a Fleet of Educational Buildings Focusing on Energy EfficiencyDimitrios Amaxilatis0Orestis Akrivopoulos1Georgios Mylonas2Ioannis Chatzigiannakis3Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus”, Patras 26504, GreeceSparkworks Ltd., Altrincham WA14 1RP, UKComputer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus”, Patras 26504, GreeceDepartment of Computer, Control and Informatics Engineering, La Sapienza University, Rome 00185, ItalyRaising awareness among young people and changing their behaviour and habits concerning energy usage is key to achieving sustained energy saving. Additionally, young people are very sensitive to environmental protection so raising awareness among children is much easier than with any other group of citizens. This work examines ways to create an innovative Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) ecosystem (including web-based, mobile, social and sensing elements) tailored specifically for school environments, taking into account both the users (faculty, staff, students, parents) and school buildings, thus motivating and supporting young citizens’ behavioural change to achieve greater energy efficiency. A mixture of open-source IoT hardware and proprietary platforms on the infrastructure level, are currently being utilized for monitoring a fleet of 18 educational buildings across 3 countries, comprising over 700 IoT monitoring points. Hereon presented is the system’s high-level architecture, as well as several aspects of its implementation, related to the application domain of educational building monitoring and energy efficiency. The system is developed based on open-source technologies and services in order to make it capable of providing open IT-infrastructure and support from different commercial hardware/sensor vendors as well as open-source solutions. The system presented can be used to develop and offer new app-based solutions that can be used either for educational purposes or for managing the energy efficiency of the building. The system is replicable and adaptable to settings that may be different than the scenarios envisioned here (e.g., targeting different climate zones), different IT infrastructures and can be easily extended to accommodate integration with other systems. The overall performance of the system is evaluated in real-world environment in terms of scalability, responsiveness and simplicity.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/10/2296Internet of Thingsenergy efficiencyeducational buildingsnon-residential buildingsreal-time monitoringeducationbehavioral changeopen-sourcecloud computingevaluation |
| spellingShingle | Dimitrios Amaxilatis Orestis Akrivopoulos Georgios Mylonas Ioannis Chatzigiannakis An IoT-Based Solution for Monitoring a Fleet of Educational Buildings Focusing on Energy Efficiency Sensors Internet of Things energy efficiency educational buildings non-residential buildings real-time monitoring education behavioral change open-source cloud computing evaluation |
| title | An IoT-Based Solution for Monitoring a Fleet of Educational Buildings Focusing on Energy Efficiency |
| title_full | An IoT-Based Solution for Monitoring a Fleet of Educational Buildings Focusing on Energy Efficiency |
| title_fullStr | An IoT-Based Solution for Monitoring a Fleet of Educational Buildings Focusing on Energy Efficiency |
| title_full_unstemmed | An IoT-Based Solution for Monitoring a Fleet of Educational Buildings Focusing on Energy Efficiency |
| title_short | An IoT-Based Solution for Monitoring a Fleet of Educational Buildings Focusing on Energy Efficiency |
| title_sort | iot based solution for monitoring a fleet of educational buildings focusing on energy efficiency |
| topic | Internet of Things energy efficiency educational buildings non-residential buildings real-time monitoring education behavioral change open-source cloud computing evaluation |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/10/2296 |
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