Intelligent systems and environmental sustainability

Many efforts have been made in the world of engineering, precisely in an attempt to raise the quality level of indoor environments, placing the needs of the person at the center of attention, trying to refine and also correct the comfort evaluation models.

The Internet of Things seeks to establish a symbiosis between the user, the home environment and the external environment, in which communication and interoperability are at the center.

A goal that is not without obstacles, such as the themes of comfort and the emotional-perceptive sphere, in which the objective aspects merge and mix with the subjective aspects.

Thanks to the SINCOS project, developed within the collaborative platform in the field of home automation MIRACLE (Marche Innovation and Research fAcilities for Connected and sustainable Living Environments) co-financed by the Marche Region through the POR MARCHE FESR 2014/2020, a series of of studies in which contributions from universities and local businesses converge.

These studies aim to create an ecosystem of devices for intelligent air treatment, focusing above all on the quantification of environmental parameters in order to model the comfort of the living environment.

This is done through the development of custom sensors for air quality analysis, involving devices commonly found in every home such as: hoods, purifiers, diffusers; without neglecting the concept of environmental sustainability.

These results can be obtained thanks to the studies conducted through an Environment Simulator, set up inside some premises of the Polytechnic University of Marche, a technologically advanced and networked place, which reproduces a classic studio apartment with living room and kitchen, equipped with an electric induction hob.

This space welcomes some students who spend part of the day there, studying, eating, interacting with each other exactly as they would in their small apartment.

Here various sensors have been inserted, through which various elements can be studied, such as:

• the study of comfort and how it varies according to temperature variations,
  the study of air quality,
  the study of energy saving.

This is a real laboratory, it is equipped with a controlled ventilation system with a hot-cold fan coil, with a network of sensors able to control:

• the thermo-hygrometric and acoustic comfort of the environment,
  the quality of the air present in the room.

These sensors monitor biometric data and collect objective information about the effects of temperature changes on the occupants, data that is collected in a database.

To these objective surveys are added the subjective information provided by the occupants themselves through an active survey every thirty minutes, thus also enhancing the contribution that derives from the component that emerges from the emotional and perceptive sphere.

Observing and learning how our bodies react to the environment allows us to adapt technology to our needs, in a dialectical link made up of needs and solutions.

An intelligent environment that places the human being at the center and that is able not only to support people by modulating in response to their needs but also by responding to the increasingly current needs of sustainability, with a view to a higher quality of life that at the same time reduce energy consumption.

The hood inserted on the hob is also equipped with sensors that are able to measure the temperature and monitor the quality of the air.

The data collected is managed with control strategies on the Cloud, in order to arrive at increasingly advanced forms of monitoring and the construction of sophisticated predictive tools.

All this was possible thanks to the synergistic collaboration between the Polytechnic University of Marche, the University of Camerino and companies in the project’s territory, such as Elica, and IDEA as its technology sub-contractor, Eletica, Bax, Roccheggiani and DevQ .

Within this project, we dealt with the development of sensors for air quality and connectivity and data acquisition and the development and construction of the sensorized fans of the hood.