Artificial Intelligence in Smart Buildings

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, global warming is encouraging many researchers to focus on smart energy solutions to deal with the problem of climate change. All over the world there are myriads of buildings that consume energy for space heating and cooling, indoor lighting, etc., which burden global warming even more. The challenge of reducing the energy requirements of a building in conjunction with maintaining or even improving the quality of the indoor environment leads to the combination of different technologies for developing “smart buildings”. The term “smart buildings” refers to buildings that use various technologies to communicate their systems in order to optimize their performance. A smart building uses sensors for online monitoring, gathers data to analyze its own energy use, and applies automated techniques to adjust the conditions throughout the entire building. The quality of life in buildings is determined by three basic factors: Thermal comfort, visual comfort, and indoor air quality. The optimization of performance mainly lies in the optimal living conditions for the occupants, the reduction of building expenses, and the reduction of energy consumption which burdens the environment.

With recent advances in artificial intelligence, energy and the built environment are becoming more and more closely linked. The term “artificial intelligence” refers to intelligence demonstrated by machines that perform cognitive functions associated with the human minds. The concept is related to machines that process large amounts of information either using historical data or data acquired via interaction with the environment, and which continually learn through the consequences of action–result combinations. Artificial techniques can be used in smart buildings in order to improve their performance in a fully automated concept. Artificial intelligence systems can process the information acquired by sensors, learn from patterns by historical data or learn online by interacting with the built environment. The acquired knowledge can be used to make either predictions or making decisions for solving problems concerning efficient energy management and the optimization of the inhabitants’ comfort.

This Special Issue encourages authors from both industry and academia to develop advanced artificial intelligence approaches in smart buildings and submit original research papers contributing to the aforementioned challenges.

Prof. Dr. Anastasios Dounis
Dr. Panagiotis Kofinas
Guest Editors

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