“Intelligent buildings” — “smart city”: from practice to theory.
Author: Andrey Volkov, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Information Systems, Technologies and Automation in Construction (ISTAS) MGSU.
This article is essentially a statement of the foundations of the innovative approach of the Moscow State Construction University (MGSU ) to the projection of the experience and results of many years of work of scientists and researchers in different areas of theoretical and applied science onto one of the most important areas of human life and activity — construction, the period of which coincides with the beginning of meaningful human existence.
Since then, the builder has been solving the problem of creating a strong and reliable house in which he would feel safe and comfortable. Thousands of years later, he still faces the same task. But what has changed? What forces us today to look for fundamentally new forms and methods of solving it, which, I note, is not at all so simple?
There are many reasons. The main ones lie in the constant natural and artificial correction of the meaning of the concepts of “safety” and “comfort”. The nature and variety of forms of natural and man-made disasters do not allow builders to put an end to any of the most modern projects, either today or in the future. Moreover, if in the cave it was appropriate to talk only about protection from wild animals and bad weather, today, sad as it may be, a person has to think about protection from humans. In this case, on both sides of the “barricades” are the most modern technologies of creation and destruction. Any achievements of scientists are instantly divided into two “sides of the coin”.
In the context of the above, the change in human ideas about comfort over the past millennia does not look like such a large-scale problem. However, in recent years, specialists have found it difficult to find a compromise on this issue. The economic component, which plays an important role, increasingly forces modern builders to “jump above their own heads.” Unfortunately, many examples can be given when such a “leap” cost a person too much…
Despite such a pessimistic picture, of course, one should not despair. Today, several serious modern scientific schools are being formed, exist and are developing, offering comprehensive and subject-oriented solutions to various aspects of the problems outlined. I am proud to note that the main ones were created and developed at MGSU.
It is appropriate to begin the analysis of the problems of constructing general theories of management of buildings and structures with an analysis of the meaning and content of the concept of “intelligent building” (Intelligent Building – IB), which arose as a result of the practice of using new engineering solutions in modern construction.
Today, despite the fact that the concept of “intelligent building” is quite often used by scientists and specialists representing different areas of construction design, production and management, it is impossible to formulate any universal definition of this term that would satisfy the variety of existing contexts.
In addition to the above, we are talking about such concepts used in modern construction and architecture as “sustainable building”, “energy-efficient building”, “bioclimatic architecture” – English), “healthy building” (Healthy Building – English), etc. One can say with some bewilderment that today a building or structure “becomes” “intelligent” by the will of its creators, who considered it possible to attribute one or more engineering systems to a fashionable direction, allowing you to position an object on the market at a qualitatively new level and justify unreasonable costs.
There is probably nothing wrong with this, but with the only caveat that in many cases we are talking about a certain the aura of an “intelligent home” that accompanies certain engineering and technical solutions, the originality and quality of which vary widely.
In any case, they can be classified into one or more well-known categories:
– automation of systems and processes;
– safety;
– information and communications;
– optimization of resource use;
– functional/technical compliance and flexibility;
– ecology;
– ergonomics and comfort.
Despite the terminological uncertainty, the relevance of scientific and practical research in each of these areas is beyond doubt. Moreover, in many countries such problems receive the status of state priorities and are solved within the framework of federal government programs at all levels.
Without in any way detracting from the merits of modern engineering solutions within the designated area, let’s try to look at the problem a little more broadly.
The currently prevailing paradigm of the “intelligent building” and related areas can be formulated on the basis of the concept of the so-called building management system (BMS), the main task of which is to automate the processes of assessing situations arising during the operation of a building and responding to them in a certain way.
The main problem faced by any specialist who evaluates such solutions from the standpoint of analyzing the fundamentals of the methodology for constructing original systems is that they are generally of an extremely narrow, subject-oriented nature, which limits the capabilities of the project’s systems engineering to the engineering level .
Methodological gap in the existing paradigm of “Intelligent Building”
The “integrated solutions” and “system integration” BMS offered by some, mainly foreign manufacturers, do not qualitatively change the current situation, since they are nothing more than so-called automated control systems (ACS) of different levels and orientations that are compatible in one or more key parameters, having deployed means of information support for operational interfaces.
It can be reasonably argued that today the practice of creating building management systems is significantly ahead of the theory. The objective reason for this is the relevance of the issue under consideration, first of all, from a practical point of view, which determines the willingness of the customer (investor) to incur additional expenses, the payback of which these days is no longer in doubt. The result of such projects is often far from not only the ideal, but also from any acceptable level in the assessed perspective. From the point of view of real BMS design, the above leads to the fact that the engineer is increasingly faced with issues that are fundamentally unsolvable at his level.
There is a serious methodological problem caused by the lack of the foundations of applied science — the theory of design and construction of systems in the described context (picture).
What is most sad is that the invaluable experience accumulated by several generations of scientists and researchers in many areas of modern natural science over the past centuries is being used to solve this problem far from adequately.
Today, entire areas of fundamental scientific knowledge have been formed or are being formed that can qualitatively change the paradigm of engineering practice through the development of relevant applied sciences. We can say with confidence that the construction of buildings and structures is one of the most promising industries in this regard.
Thus, the efforts of contemporaries should be aimed primarily at eliminating the contradictions that characterize the situation when many practical solutions are acutely need theoretical justification, and the declared achievements of fundamental science are not able to enter our lives, without any real possibility of industrial testing.
The paradigm of abstract cybernetics, declaring the general principles and methods of studying systems of a qualitatively different nature (biological, technical, social, etc.), which developed by the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, a high level of development of information and telecommunication technologies in technical systems, fundamental and applied research by leading scientific schools, reflecting various areas of modern knowledge in the context of the principles of the theory of functional systems, can and should become today the methodological basis of a qualitatively new approach to the generation and evaluation of engineering solutions in construction — one of the most popular, dynamically developing and promising sectors of industrial production, which largely determines the level of scientific and technological progress in general. The objective necessity of such an approach is dictated by a number of man-made and social factors, the relevance of the closest attention to which is confirmed by the statistics of our own mistakes that are disappointing for humanity.
It is obvious that the use of the latest achievements of science and technology, along with tangible benefits, is fraught with potential danger, sometimes so significant that the scale of possible disasters cannot be assessed.
On the other hand, stopping the development of scientific and technological progress today is not only impossible, but also dangerous due to an equally weighty set of objective reasons. We can only skillfully maneuver in the area of reasonable compromises of our own achievements with nature and the surrounding world.
Norbert Wiener, professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted that “…nature, in the broad sense of the word, can and should serve not only as a source of problems solved in my research, but also to suggest an apparatus suitable for solving them…”. It is this thesis of the creator of the foundations of cybernetics that forms the basis for the concept of engineering functional systems for managing buildings and structures at the homeostatic level, which involves the use of the principles of functioning of living organisms to solve problems of managing complex technical systems.
The possibility, as well as the success of solving problems in such a formulation, directly depends on the extent to which a modern researcher is able to perceive and use the experience and knowledge accumulated to date by the science of human nature and technology, as products of his intellect.
Today the foundations of applied science have been created, making it possible to design the most modern “intelligent building” technologies at a qualitatively new level of practice in the implementation of such systems.
The next stage in the development of the proposed paradigm is the “smart city”, the theory of the creation of which today forms the basis of the innovative development of MGSU in the scientific, applied and educational aspects, allowing domestic construction science not only to keep up with world achievements in this area, but also to share experience in some issues with foreign colleagues.
The declared results of scientific, innovative and educational activities are confirmed by dozens of dissertations defended in recent years, hundreds of scientific publications and educational and methodological developments of our teachers of the highest level.
An important feature of the paradigm of design, construction and operation of “intelligent buildings” and “smart cities” proposed at MGSU is the possibility of attracting scientists and specialists to its development who have relevant practical experience and knowledge in specific applied areas from any scientific, educational, industrial, design and other organizations both at the level of theory and at the level of practice of the proposed solutions.
Close cooperation of our university with the Association for building automation and control systems for engineering equipment BIG-RU in the above context, which has been actively developing recently, can should become the basis for the creation of an innovative scientific and educational center that involves and generalizes domestic and foreign experience in the theory and practice of implementing solutions in the field of “intelligent buildings” and “smart cities” in the process of creating and transferring industrial technologies for the design, construction and operation of modern buildings and structures in a qualitatively new level of safe, energy efficient, environmentally friendly and comfortable objects — representatives of the most complex triad “man — technology — habitat”.
Read the continuation in the next issue
AZ Bulletin No. 6 2007
AZ Bulletin No. 7 2007
AZ Bulletin No. 9 2007