BRIM Human-Centric Building Management and Aggregated Demand Management

To create a complete building management system that makes energy consumption map precisely to human activity. Traditionally, the consumption of energy doesn't correlate with how or when people use the building. Stakeholders (owners, tenants, occupants) have limited knowledge (i.e objective data) about how their closed space is being used. The system will need to provide detailed knowledge about facility usage but also automatically adapt and optimise services around any changes. The performance of an area does not meet the expectations of its users. Using good architecture and intelligent sensing makes the building a more responsive and satisfying place to inhabit.

The BRIM system is a powerful nervous system for buildings. It works in three stages to bring energy savings, security and insight into how a building is used. Firstly, the design of the BRIM Sensor and BRIM Link controllers provide a discrete collection point for human activity, building behaviour and environmental status of the area. The system then integrates this information using API technology into building management systems and services like Apple's Homekit. From here the Cloud services layer intelligently and provide real-time analytics and control of connected devices.

Social Impact: The BRIM system is people-centric. Not only does it work to optimise comfort and sanctuary while saving energy, but also serves valuable information for HR; safety and environment knowledge. Commercial Impact: Energy is not getting cheaper, buildings must be smart enough to work with the power grid as well as local battery storage and generation to minimise expense. BRIM makes the building a more desirable and practical place to inhabit. Environmental Impact: Our built environment must work with us to drive energy consumption down. BRIM works with other existing systems to significantly reduce energy consumption adaptively.

From the sensor to Cloud data analytics, the BRIM system is a balanced system architecture that has distributed intelligence and control from top to bottom. The system includes: 1: A mesh networked layer of intelligent semi-autonomous sensors and local control nodes 2: A layer to provide control and integration for the sensor layer as well as an API integration point into building management systems, services like Apple’s Homekit, battery power storage systems and as a concentrator for uploading data in a timely fashion to cloud services 3: A cloud services layer that provides analytics, control, and integration into grid service, precinct and city interfaces, WebAPI interface and a full history. The BRIMsensor and BRIMlink controller, designed together with 4Design, perform critical onboard analysis of collected signals to understand human activity, building behaviour and environmental status as well as autonomous local real-time control. The BRIMsensor collects sound, motion, temperature and light information and performs local signal processing and statistical analysis to provide a detailed understanding of machine, human and environmental activity without any privacy concerns. By distributing the intelligence to the lowest layer of the system reaction time, network loads and intelligent response are guaranteed.