Wireless Sensor Networking for Building Environment Monitoring

Leaks, cracks, seepage, and other vulnerabilities in a building envelope can create enormous structural problems that are expensive to repair and can even lead to litigation. Often a problem can exist for years before the signs of the damage become visible. Wireless sensor networking provides the ability to monitor the integrity of the building envelope and identify problems before they cause damage to the structure.

Benefits to Building Environment Monitoring OEMs

For OEMs and developers of building environment monitoring systems, wireless sensor networking delivers:

• New building environment monitoring revenue opportunities – The significant reduction in installed costs opens up new market opportunities for buildings to install monitoring systems to support the integrity of the structure.
• Increased environment monitoring flexibility – With the elimination of wires, sensing and monitoring points are quickly and easily installed in existing environments either in-room or embedded in walls.
• Improved data collection for better control – In contrast to many wired systems that require data to be manually downloaded, causing a delay in potential problem recognition, data is automatically transmitted to the monitoring application for cost-effective, real-time monitoring.

Solutions for Building Environment Monitoring

Millennial Net’s MeshScape system is well-suited for building environment monitoring applications. The hardware modules are easily integrated with sensor, actuator, and control devices and can be installed quickly and easily. The small form factor enables the modules to be easily embedded in a wall or discreetly positioned within a room. The robust networking protocol provides redundant and scalable wireless mesh network out of the box. MeshScape delivers:

• Power efficiency for in-wall embedding – The MeshScape system, based on an extremely lightweight protocol, offers the most power-efficient solution on the market today enabling embedded sensor nodes to operate for years on a single coin-cell battery.
• Scalability to support any size building – The MeshScape system’s ability to scale along a variety of dimensions – including range, interference, and mobility – enable deployment in buildings of any size.
• Lower installation costs – Applications using MeshScape networking are installed easily and inexpensively without any re-wiring work required.

Building Environment Monitoring Applications

Wireless Sensor Networking Opens a Window to New Opportunities