Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “advanced building monitoring and controls”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Development and Validation of Smart Building Technology Modules for Academic and Professional Education

Slipstream leads a team developing a semester-long smart building curriculum for college students and adapting the contents into 16 training videos for building professionals and the public. The topics cover smart building technologies related content including industry trends and benefits, building systems, sensors and IoT devices, advanced building monitoring and controls, smart building control platform, methods, and applications.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Innovations in Sensors and Controls for Building Energy Management: Research and Development Opportunities Report for Emerging Technologies

Sensors, actuators, and controllers, which collectively serve as the backbone of cyberphysical systems for building energy management, are one of the core technical areas of investment for achieving the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies Office's (BTO's) goals for energy affordability in the national building stock - both commercial and residential. In fact, an aggregated annual energy savings of 29% is estimated in the commercial sector alone through the implementation of efficiency measures using current state-of-the-art sensors and controls to retune buildings by optimizing programmable settings based on occupant schedules and comfort requirements, as well as detecting and diagnosing equipment operation and installation problems (Fernandez et al. 2017). Monitoring and control of building conditions and operations has advanced significantly, from the invention of the modern thermostat just before the start of the 20th century to the midcentury incorporation of direct digital control into devices, the introduction of open protocols and network communications at the end of the century, and finally the invention of cloud-based computing and additional advancements that have enabled remote operation and a proliferation of connected and intelligent devices in building automation. Despite this potential, however, two main challenges hinder widespread adoption of sensors and controls in building operations that can ensure savings for high-efficiency components and equipment (e.g., heat pumps, windows, and lighting devices), as well as additional savings from more sophisticated control architectures and algorithms. energy savings of 29% is estimated in the commercial sector alone through the implementation of efficiency measures using current state-of-the-art sensors and controls to retune buildings by optimizing programmable settings based on occupant schedules and comfort requirements, as well as detecting and diagnosing equipment operation and installation problems (Fernandez et al. 2017). Monitoring and control of building conditions and operations has advanced significantly, from the invention of the modern thermostat just before the start of the 20th century to the midcentury incorporation of direct digital control into devices, the introduction of open protocols and network communications at the end of the century, and finally the invention of cloud-based computing and additional advancements that have enabled remote operation and a proliferation of connected and intelligent devices in building automation. Despite this potential, however, two main challenges hinder widespread adoption of sensors and controls in building operations that can ensure savings for high-efficiency components and equipment (e.g., heat pumps, windows, and lighting devices), as well as additional savings from more sophisticated control architectures and algorithms.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

PD21A680: Additive Manufacturing Process Optimization and Qualification FY21 Year-end Report

This project builds upon knowledge gained from previous projects on Additive Manufacturing (AM) operation, process control and monitoring, repeatability, and process improvement. This project will exclusively focus on metal powder bed additive manufacturing (PBAM). Objective 1: Advance metal powder bed AM R&D capabilities. Perform enhanced R&D on increased build volumes and throughput, safety and handling controls, process monitoring, and diagnostics with a focus on production end-states. Objective 2: Build upon knowledge gained from previous PDRD projects to develop deeper understanding of process controls, essential for transitioning metal AM processes for future applications. Objective 3: Maintain business development and research advantages through collaborations with external industry and university partners.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Time and Frequency Analysis of Load Profile Data

Technology advancements and integration of modern advanced metering systems can monitor, forecast, inform, control, and operate the building's mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems. They offer a higher level of information, which can contribute to making smart buildings more energy efficient and to making them closer to becoming grid-interactive energy efficient buildings (GEB). This paper builds on the ongoing research on variability analysis of a case study building with a 1-minute load profile and examines the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) process in the frequency domain to quantify the signal's energy in each bandwidth, with respect to each end-use category. Moreover, the amount of variability in the total variability is not similar among the end-use categories. This information is needed to understand the behavior of the variability in the frequency domain for future applications, such as generating synthetic load profiles with a similar frequency spectrum as the measured signal.

decomposition↗
NASA NTRS1989

Manufacturing Aids

During a research program, MMTC/Textron invented a computer-aided automatic robotic system for spraying hot plasma onto a turbine blade. The need to control the thickness of the plasma deposit led to the development of advanced optical gaging techniques to monitor and control plasma spray build-up on blade surfaces. The techniques led to computerized optical gages for inspecting aircraft, industrial turbine blades, etc. MMTC offers 10 standard commercial robotic gages. The system also generates two dimensional profiles for assessing status and specifying repairs to the electromechanical cathodes used to make the parts. It is capable of accuracies to a ten-thousandth of an inch. An expanded product line is currently marketed. The gages offer multiple improvements in quality control and significant savings.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2025

ACTIVE

The Automated Control Testbed for Integration, Verification, and Emulation (ACTIVE) framework is a software platform designed to support the optimized operation and management of a wide range of building types. It enables the development, testing, and validation of diverse control strategies, including AI-based, rule-based, and model-based approaches. The platform facilitates a seamless transition from simulation-based evaluation of control strategies to real-world field validation and deployment. ACTIVE supports the full building management lifecycle, encompassing data acquisition and management, system monitoring, optimized control, adaptive learning services, device dispatch and coordination, as well as advanced analytics and visualization. Together, these capabilities provide an integrated environment for improving building performance, operational efficiency, reducing energy cost, and reliability.

Smith, Robert [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL↗
DOE OSTI2020

Design, Development and Testing Plan for Energy Efficiency Algorithms Related to Building-Integrated Cooling, Heating, and Power Systems

Building-integrated cooling, heating and power (CHP) systems are more efficient than conventional systems at providing local power and thermal energy, and favorable fuel prices are bound to spur their increased adoption. It is estimated that the total CHP technical potential in the commercial building sector is approximately 76 GW, but only a small fraction of it is actually deployed. Advanced control and monitoring systems that realize the full potential of these CHP systems can transform this capacity into an asset for both the owner and the grid and also accelerate the adoption of these systems in the building sector. However, to realize the full benefit of the CHP systems, we must ensure persistence of energy efficient operations. It has been demonstrated by several studies that as much as 30% of building energy use is wasted. Much of the waste results from the inability to anticipate load variations (design day vs. non-design day operations; diurnal variation of loads), identify improper operation, and efficiently operate, control and maintain building systems. Moreover, many buildings, even those with adequate control infrastructure, lack knowledgeable staff to operate and maintain energy systems. Operators of buildings with CHP systems will constantly need to make tradeoffs (economic dispatch) between onsite power generation and purchasing power, between onsite heat production from distributed generation versus heating/cooling from conventional systems, and different passive and active load management measures. Much of the inefficiency in the current building operations can be eliminated by use of automated performance monitoring (PM), real-time commissioning verification (CxV) and automated fault detection and diagnostic (AFDD) tools. Automation can help system operators make intelligent decisions. Remote and continuous monitoring of system conditions and performance will enable better management and integration of CHP with existing building systems. Continuous PM, real-time CxV and AFDD could alleviate burdens for operations staff, enhance operations and maintenance (O&M), and improve reliability of building and CHP systems. To address the O&M challenges and to provide a means to maximize the rate-of-return of building-integrated CHP systems, the Building Technologies Office (BTO) within the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) initiated a project to design, develop, and field test a VOLTTRON™-based supervisory controller and associated open-source algorithms. These algorithms will ensure real-time optimal operation of a building-integrated CHP system, support electric grid reliability, and lead to achieving the goal of a clean, efficient, reliable and affordable next-generation integrated energy systems. This report lists the components for which PM, real-time CxV and AFDD algorithms will be developed, how the algorithms will be tested, and metrics that will be used to validate the algorithms and easy of deployment. Deployment of these algorithms in the field will result in savings reduction in energy consumption of between 10% and 20%.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2008

Use of Spacecraft Command Language for Advanced Command and Control Applications

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the use of SCL in building and monitoring command and control applications in order to determine its fitness for space operations. Approximately 24,325 lines of PCG2 code was converted to SCL yielding a 90% reduction in the number of lines of code as many of the functions and scripts utilized in SCL could be ported and reused. Automated standalone testing, simulating the actual production environment, was performed in order to generalize and gauge the relative time it takes for SCL to update and write a given display. The use of SCL rules, functions, and scripts allowed the creation of several test cases permitting the detection of the amount of time it takes update a given set of measurements given the change in a globally existing CUI or CUI. It took the SCL system an average 926.09 ticks to update the entire display of 323 measurements.

Mims, Tikiela L.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Catalyst Layer Design, Manufacturing and In-line Quality Control

In this project we successfully demonstrated the capabilities of the Reactive Spray Deposition Technology (RSDT) to fabricate large-scale CCMs for advanced PEMWEs that have one-order of magnitude lower PGM loading in their catalyst layers, and performance comparable with the commercial state-of-the-art CCMs. The RSDT is a unique methodology that combines the catalyst synthesis and CCM fabrication in one step and reduces dramatically the time for CCM manufacturing. As fabricated large-scale CCMs with geometric area of 680 cm2 demonstrated excellent activity and durability performance, and the novel duo-recombination layer design paves the way for solving the safety concerns related to PEMWEs. In addition, excellent activity and durability performance has been demonstrated with RSDT fabricated CCMs with thinner membranes and duo RL design. This is a novel approach for further performance improvement of the MEAs for PEMWEs that has been successfully demonstrated for the first time in this project. The integration of the in-situ laser diagnostics system along with the in-line optical quality control system within the RSDT that has been achieved and demonstrated in this project, is an example for possibility of designing and building advanced manufacturing technologies that can meet the requirements of the future manufacturing. Therefore, the RSDT offers a precise real-time monitoring and control of the particles size, composition, loading, porosity, thickness, and defects in the catalysts’ layers, which render this technology as the best candidate for manufacturing of cost effective CCMs for PEMWEs. By using RSDT we successfully met all project’s milestones, Go/No-Go decision, objectives, goals, and deliverables.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2022

A low-cost centralized HVAC control system solution for energy savings, load shedding, and improved maintenance

University campuses rely on centralized controls for managing and optimizing complex HVAC systems in larger buildings. However, most campuses also have many smaller buildings with packaged HVAC systems controlled by a stand-alone thermostat. Even when these distributed and often overlooked systems have modern programmable thermostats, they cannot be centrally monitored or controlled, and they are typically not programmed adequately. This paper describes the implementation of a low-cost centralized control solution for these systems serving smaller campus buildings, mostly under 5,000 sf and representative of light commercial spaces. Thanks to advances in technology spurred by residential and commercial IoT developments, simple networked thermostat solutions exist that can easily replace original thermostats, and, connect these systems to a web-based portal for monitoring and control. We show that, with small customizations, these platforms can be integrated into facility management workflows. Beyond the energy savings potential from improved scheduling and closer management of these systems, there are significant advantages for maintenance crews since these systems can now be monitored on smart phones or tablets. A grid-responsive load-shedding program has also been implemented for additional cost savings. The networked thermostats can also be connected to additional systems such as economizer controls for improved ventilation management and energy savings. With data from these systems integrated centrally, it can also be used for improved analytics and fault detection. A toolkit has been developed to share the program with other campuses, whether for energy savings, improved management of ventilation, or a more proactive maintenance approach.

Fauchier-Magnan, Nicolas↗
DOE OSTI2023

CYDRES: CYber Defense and REsilient System for securing grid-interactive efficient buildings

Smart buildings, especially Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs), suffer from cyber-attacks and physical faults due to the integration of a large number of sensors and controls, connected devices, and associated communication networks. This study demonstrated a real-time advanced building resilient platform, called CYber Defense and REsilient System (CYDRES), which is deployable for existing and emerging Building Automation Systems (BASs). CYDRES aims to empower GEBs with cyber-attack-immune capabilities through multi-layer prevention and adaptation mechanisms to monitor, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks and physical operational faults. CYDRES is demonstrated through real-time experiments in a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testbed.

Building automation system, Cyber-attacks, Physica↗
NASA NTRS2017

Integrated Systems Health Management for Sustainable Habitats (Using Sustainability Base as a Testbed)

Habitation systems provide a safe place for astronauts to live and work in space and on planetary surfaces. They enable crews to live and work safely in deep space, and include integrated life support systems, radiation protection, fire safety, and systems to reduce logistics and the need for resupply missions. Innovative health management technologies are needed in order to increase the safety and mission-effectiveness for future space habitats on other planets, asteroids, or lunar surfaces. For example, off-nominal or failure conditions occurring in safety-critical life support systems may need to be addressed quickly by the habitat crew without extensive technical support from Earth due to communication delays. If the crew in the habitat must manage, plan and operate much of the mission themselves, operations support must be migrated from Earth to the habitat. Enabling monitoring, tracking, and management capabilities on-board the habitat and related EVA platforms for a small crew to use will require significant automation and decision support software.Traditional caution and warning systems are typically triggered by out-of-bounds sensor values, but can be enhanced by including machine learning and data mining techniques. These methods aim to reveal latent, unknown conditions while still retaining and improving the ability to provide highly accurate alerts for known issues. A few of these techniques will briefly described, along with performance targets for known faults and failures. Specific system health management capabilities required for habitat system elements (environmental control and life support systems, etc.) may include relevant subsystems such as water recycling systems, photovoltaic systems, electrical power systems, and environmental monitoring systems. Sustainability Base, the agency's flagship LEED-platinum certified green building acts as a living laboratory for testing advanced information and sustainable technologies that provides an opportunity to test novel machine learning and controls capabilities. In this talk, key features of Sustainability Base that make it relevant to deep space habitat technology and its use of these kinds of subsystems previously listed will be presented. The fact that all such systems require less power to support human occupancy can be used as a focal point to serve as a testbed for deep space habitats that will need to operate within finite energy budgets.

Systems Health Management↗
DOE OSTI2025

A digital twin platform for building performance monitoring and optimization: Performance simulation and case studies

Advancements in sensor technology, data analytics, affordable compute, and communication infrastructure have paved the way for Digital Twin technology in optimizing building operations and controls. This study presents the development of an open and interoperable web-based Digital Twin platform for integrating diverse data streams and facilitating effective user interactions. The platform utilizes modern technologies for the web framework and time-series data management, ensuring scalability and responsiveness. The backend supports seamless integration of diverse data sources and emulators, incorporating data from building sensors and meters, external weather Application Programming Interfaces, and advanced EnergyPlus simulation models of the building and its energy systems including the Distributed Energy Resources that are formulated in Functional Mockup Units. A simulation case study was conducted with FlexLab, a test facility on Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory campus. The case study includes normal operations, Distributed Energy Resource integration, and power outage scenarios, to illustrate the Digital Twin’s ability to provide critical insights into energy performance and thermal resilience. The results demonstrated the platform’s potential as a decision-support tool for optimizing building energy performance and enhancing resilience against extreme weather events. Future work will focus on deploying the Digital Twin platform to a real building for field validation, extending its capabilities to cover more scenarios such as bidirectional Electric Vehicle interactions, and enhancing user engagement.

EnergyPlus↗
DOE OSTI2021

Towards Learning-Based Architectures for Sensor Impact Evaluation in Building Controls

Advanced control algorithms for building systems are known to have significant potential in reducing energy consumption while optimizing thermal comfort. The success of such algorithms is critically contingent on several different types of sensor systems, which are in turn, used for continuous monitoring, identification and estimation of several important building states, such as temperatures, humidity, air quality, power consumption and occupancy status. Nonidealities in any of these sensors can lead to significant performance degradation of the control functionalities, and may lead to unwanted sub-optimal building operation. In this paper, we provide a simulation example with a high-fidelity building model, for a particular use-case of advanced optimization-based control in buildings, i.e., occupancy-based controls. We show how imperfections in occupancy sensing can offset performance. Subsequently, we discuss a novel learning-based architecture to efficiently evaluate the impact of sensor nonidealities for building systems, in context of advanced control algorithms.

Bhattacharya, Saptarshi↗
DOE OSTI2020

High-Frequency, Multiclass Nonintrusive Load Monitoring for Grid-Interactive Residential Buildings

Smart buildings with net-load metering and control capabilities can provide valuable flexibility to grid operators. This article develops a novel approach for high-frequency, multiclass nonintrusive load monitoring (NILM) that enables effective net-load monitoring capabilities with minimal additional equipment and cost. Relative to existing NILM work, the proposed solution operates at a faster timescale, providing accurate multiclass state predictions for each 60-Hz ac cycle without relying on event-detection techniques. The approach is validated using a test bed with residential appliances and shown to have high accuracy, good generalization properties, and sufficient response time to support building grid-interactive control at fast timescales relevant to the provision of grid frequency support services.

27 ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy↗
NASA NTRS1996

A Concept for the Use and Integration of Super-Conducting Magnets in Structural Systems in General and Maglev Guideway Mega-Structures in Particular

Recent breakthroughs in several different fields now make it possible to incorporate the use of superconducting magnets in structures in ways which enhance the performance of structural members or components of structural systems in general and Maglev guideway mega-structures in particular. The building of structural systems which connect appropriately scaled superconducting magnets with the post-tensioned tensile components of beams, girders, or columns would, if coupled with 'state of the art' structure monitoring, feedback and control systems, and advanced computer software, constitute a distinct new generation of structures that would possess the unique characteristic of being heuristic and demand or live-load responsive. The holistic integration of powerful superconducting magnets in structures so that they do actual structural work, creates a class of 'technologically endowed' structures that, in part - literally substitute superconductive electric power and magnetism for concrete and steel. The research and development engineering, and architectural design issues associated with such 'technologically endowed' structural system can now be conceptualized, designed, computer simulates built and tested. The Maglev guideway mega-structure delineated herein incorporates these concepts, and is designed for operation in the median strip of U.S. Interstate Highway 5 from San Diego to Seattle an Vancouver, and possibly on to Fairbanks, Alaska. This system also fits in the median strip of U.S. Interstate Highway 55 and 95 North-South, and 80 and 10, East-West. As a Western Region 'Peace Dividend' project, it could become a National or Bi-National research, design and build, super turnkey project that would create thousands of jobs by applying superconducting, material science, electronic aerospace and other defense industry technologies to a multi-vehicle, multi-use Maglev guideway megastructure that integrates urban mass transit Lower Speed (0-100 mph), High Speed (100-200 mph), Super Speed (200-400 mph), and Hypersonic evacuated tube (400-10,000 mph) Maglev systems.

Ussery, Wilfred T.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Nanopore Sequencing-Based Microbial Air Profiling Method for Crewed Spacecraft

Microbial monitoring of the International Space Station (ISS) atmosphere is vital to maintaining the health of the spacecraft and crew. Key to NASA’s microbial risk assessment is the identity of contaminating microorganisms in the environment. Historically, this has been achieved through impaction-based air sampling followed by culture. Identification of the microorganisms present requires sample return to Earth and lab-based analyses. While this culture-based approach has served to provide alerts to anomalies and overall confidence in the controls in place, it is not suitable for exploration missions with no sample return. Recently, significant advancements in molecular-based microbial monitoring via nanopore sequencing have been implemented onboard the ISS. Building on this work, multiple commercially available air samplers, compatible with downstream molecular analysis, were evaluated for use in the spaceflight environment. Through this assessment, the Coriolis Compact (Bertin Technologies), which uses cyclonic technology to collect bioaerosols onto the surface of a sterile cone, was selected for a larger-scale comparison to the current culture-based monitoring method. Using the Coriolis Compact, 1000 L of air was collected from the breakroom of an office building and a fitness center. The buffer used to dissociate the microbial cells from the surface of the cone was split between the NASA Microbiology Laboratory’s standard culture and Sanger sequencing-based method and the culture-independent nanopore sequencing method. The bacteria identified through culture were present in the nanopore data, with Micrococcus, Staphylococcus, and Moraxella being the most common cultured isolates, which is expected based on the media and growth conditions. Not surprisingly, the nanopore data yielded much higher diversity and paralleled that of previous atmospheric microbiome studies of human-occupied built environments. As compared to the culture-based data where the breakroom and fitness center data sets cluster in proximity, the nanopore data depicts the contrast of these atmospheric microbiomes. Moreover, the nanopore data were sufficient to meet NASA’s risk assessment needs and noted the culturable isolates routinely observed. This nanopore-based atmospheric microbial profiling method will enable near real-time environmental monitoring of crewed spacecraft as future missions extend beyond low-Earth orbit.

Brandon Dunbar↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Demonstration of Power over Ethernet (PoE) Technologies in Commercial and Institutional Buildings

Power over Ethernet (PoE) technologies are currently ubiquitous in offices in the form of phones, access points, and IP security cameras. They are systems that are familiar to and managed by on-site IT staff. As low voltage DC-power capabilities have increased with the advancement of IT network switches within offices, PoE devices are now being integrated across additional building systems, including lighting, computers, and HVAC controls. The connection of PoE devices to network switches offers the opportunity for energy monitoring and management to be performed through IT network management software. Data and results from technology validations of PoE equipment remain very limited. This lack of information hinders expansion of PoE as an energy management strategy as its benefits and challenges have been insufficiently quantified in real-world scenarios. This final report presents the findings of a DOE/State of Minnesota-funded project that demonstrated and assessed the energy and non-energy benefits of Power over Ethernet (PoE) technologies at six sites: two offices, three schools, and a hotel. The goals of the demonstrations were to: (1) assess the receptiveness of commercial and institutional markets to these new technologies, (2) demonstrate the feasibility of PoE technologies within standard design/construction practices and commercial codes, (3) assess the energy and cost savings opportunities of these technologies, (4) provide energy management opportunities where not typically available, and (5) formulate approaches to spur adoption of these technologies in the marketplace.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗