by Virna Bottarelli |
When we talk about intelligent buildings, the scenario of systems and solutions to which we refer is, in the words of Domenico Di Canosa, president of the Smart Building Alliance Italia, "very fragmented". Smart Building Alliance ItalyDomenico Di Canosa, president of Smart Building Alliance Italy , explains that Di Canosa explains that "assistants are gateways that in some cases limit the user experience and are subject more to the logic of marketplaces than to that of real usability". For this reason, the priority must be "to make interoperability effective", i.e. to ensure that smart technologies flow "smoothly from the private environment to the common services of buildings and cities", without creating difficulties for users.
An opportunity to explore these critical issues, but also the opportunities in the sector, will be offered by two events scheduled at Fiera Milano: Sicurezza and Smart Building Expo, biennial appointments for the Smart Home and plant engineering world, will be held from 22 to 24 November. Confirmation, however, of how important electronics are in the creation of intelligent buildings and domestic environments comes from the various players who, below, report on their experiences and proposals in the sector.
From sensors to power management
An overview of the electronics behind the various home automation and building management applications comes from STMicroelectronics. The French-Italian group points out that sensors play a decisive role in the creation of connected, energy-saving homes and buildings, and perform a number of functions, from monitoring environmental well-being to detecting seismic tremors: " Sensors make it possible to accurately and rapidly measure variations in temperature, humidity and pressure, so as to automatically activate air conditioning systems, perfumers, curtains and air purification filters; to detect movements and magnetic fields, as in the case of alarm systems or the automatic activation of lighting systems; and to measure inclinations and vibrations in static and dynamic building monitoring systems," explains Antonio Cirone - Marketing Manager for Sensors, Connectivity and Analog (South and Eastern Europe). Specifically, ST has developed technologies that monitor electrostatic charge variation (QVAR) and measure infrared radiation (TMOS), 'smart' sensors that can autonomously recognise gestures and movements without the use of complicated algorithms, low-distortion microphones for voice interaction applications, and audio accelerometers that can cancel out the noise associated with vibrations, in washing machines for example, or cancel out the buzz in intercoms. A second aspect of smart buildings and homes where electronics, and semiconductors, play a key role is connectivity: "The Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol is the reference standard for the control and configuration of home appliances. ST creates multiple solutions for smart and connected IoT platforms, but also for lighting & MESH networks, based on BLE radio chips and low power modules. ST Sub-1GHz radios are used in smart meters, calorimeters, remote controls to open gates or doors, smoke sensors and other Smart Home objects". Finally, a third area of interest for ST in the sector is power management. " We are also present in this area with a wide range of solutions for power converters, wireless and USB-C charging, and eFuse for overcurrent and overvoltage protection," concludes Cirone.
Graeme Clark, Principle Engineer at Renesas Electronics, also talks about power management. Renesas Electronics. "Complex management systems now automatically control many aspects of the building, processing data from a wide range of environmental sensors, which provide the foundation on which intelligent buildings are built. One of the biggest challenges is how to power these sensors: flexibility in the configuration of a modern building is often a key requirement, so fixed wiring for power and data transmission is not ideal. It is better to exploit wireless technologies for communication and energy haversting techniques for local power supply. Clark also points out that while in the past building automation systems, also known as Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS) or Building Management Systems (BMS), were primarily concerned with heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, today they also include lighting, environmental control, data security, access control, accident prevention and fire safety. This increased complexity calls for 'smarter systems, with more efficient devices and advanced harvesting techniques that allow us to build real networks inside our buildings' . Renesas has the answer, with the RE family of microcontrollers, based on the Silicon on Thin Buried Oxide (SOTB) ultra-low power process technology, which enables high performance with extremely low current consumption and low voltage supply, and the Energy Harvesting Controller (EHC), a peripheral that enables the microcontrollers to be powered by the small amount of energy that can be extracted from typical renewable sources and that simplifies the management of energy stored in devices such as super capacitors or rechargeable batteries. "One application field where energy harvesting can bring a significant technological advantage is the glass breakage detector, which is present in many security systems. This application usually consists of a simple microphone and MCU, which is waiting to detect vibrations or the sound of breaking glass, plus a radio that sends the alarm. These sensors are located on the window, a perfect spot to place a small solar cell that can be used to charge a small battery. The RE01 MCU has high performance while being powered at low voltage, offering enough power to run the algorithms needed to detect glass breakage, while consuming very little energy. The integrated energy harvesting peripheral can draw energy from a solar cell and control the charging process of a small battery, creating a truly compact solution; size is also important in the case of very small products. Removing the batteries from applications of this type eliminates the need for a technician to intervene: since there is no battery we can forget about replacing or recharging it and so the detector will always be on, with a much longer product life and no maintenance costs."
Another area where the use of energy harvesting technology can provide significant benefits is in the control of fluid flow, such as electronic taps. "Here the difficulty in design lies in the fact that the tap is often far from a power outlet and, in any case, it is never considered very safe to have water close to the power supply. In addition, the installation, especially if secondary, is made even more complex, since there are different standards for applications of this type. Actually, in this case, the flow of water in itself already provides enough energy to power the product. One possible design could exploit the water current, which turns a micro turbine inside the tap, generating enough energy to power electronic devices and charge a rechargeable battery. The energy stored in the battery is enough to keep a simple photoelectric sensor operational for more than a month, detecting if a user has put their hands under the tap. As well as managing this detection, with the energy available it is also possible to open the solenoid valve that releases the flow of water. As the water flows, the battery is recharged. The tap will then be autonomous and the end product, using a bistable solenoid, will be truly low consumption."
