My previous posts covering the Advantech Intelligent Building Solution (AiBS) focused on the first three of its four major iBuilding scenarios: Intelligent Parking, Intelligent Reception, the Intelligent Meeting Room and the Intelligent Office – scenarios that were specifically considered by Advantech to encourage and facilitate development of system refinements that building-automation planners might otherwise miss.
Because office floors and rooms are among a building’s most consistently utilized areas, AiBS’s Intelligent Office scenario was critical to accomplishment of Advantech’s goal of maximizing comfort and efficiency. AiBS divides office floors into a number of functional areas and automatically returns lighting and climate control of each to optimum energy-saving modes when an area has been vacant for a predetermined time. When people are present, lighting and climate control are automatically adjusted as appropriate for the number and location of people present, factoring such elements as carbon-dioxide density, humidity and temperature.
Because AiBS envisions an IP network that extends to all of an enterprise’s facilities, including off-campus and overseas branches, telephone calls made to an office can be seamlessly and automatically redirected to an employee’s corresponding mobile phone when the employee’s location at a given moment dictates.
As I’ve noted before, AiBS is first and foremost people-centric, emphasizing the security, health, comfort and convenience of its users, while delivering efficiencies that are as friendly to an enterprise’s bottom line as they are to the environment. For example, AiBS features a security system that combines information, communications and equipment management. If a building sensor detects a fire hazard, appropriate alerts and alarms are issued via audio speakers, display boards and/or mobile phones, climate systems around the hot spot automatically adjust to isolate it, minimizing transfer of smoke and heat, and evacuation routes are displayed on electronic billboards. Real-time images captured by video cameras nearest the hot spot are delivered to the enterprise control center and appropriate managers and personnel will be able to monitor the scene via video delivered to their mobile devices.
These are just a few of the refinements envisioned by AiBS’s Intelligent Office scenario and are typical of the fully realized advancements that are being deployed in Advantech’s own intelligent buildings at its Kunshan R&D Center in China and its Linkou Headquarters in Taiwan.