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Ateneo

Measurement for the Built environment

Description

The research activity is focused on the development of monitoring techniques applied to buildings. The laboratory, in addition to commercial solutions, developes proprietary technologies to solve issues concerning the accurate measuring of the parameters affecting the building performance and occupants’ comfort. The developed technologies are integrated into the processes for buildings management, for both operational and design stage.
The activities are mainly developed within European Research projects (FP7 and H2020):

  • IntUBE (Intelligent Use of Buildings’ Energy Information, 2008-2011, GA 224286) – FP7-ICT-2007-2. The group has performed research activities on the application of low-cost thermographic sensors for measuring thermal conditions of indoor environments to derive energy fluxes and thermal comfort information. The main outcome is the first version of the Comfort Eye.
  • SportE2 (Intelligent Management System to integrate and control energy generation, consumption and exchange for European Sport and Recreation Buildings, 2010-2014, GA 260124) – FP7-2010-NMP-ENV-ENERGY-ICT-EeB. The group developed a smart metering system for sport facilities, integrated with an optimized building management system. The research activity was focused on the sensor networks design, the optimization of sensors positioning in large environments, energy and comfort data measurement and analysis for validation in real sport facilities.
  • CETIEB (Cost-Effective Tools for Better Indoor Environment in Retrofitted Energy Efficient Buildings, 2011-2014, GA 285623) – FP7-2011-NMP-ENV-ENERGY-ICT-EeB. In this project, the second version of the Comfort Eye sensor was developed and patented. The group worked together with other international laboratories for the development and testing of sensors network applied to the monitoring of the built environment. 
  • NewTREND (New integrated methodology and Tools for Retrofit design towards a next generation of ENergy efficient and sustainable buildings and Districts, 2015-2018, GA 680474) – H2020-EeB-2015. The activity has been focused on the development of supporting tools for a collaborative design platform applied to buildings and districts retrofit. The tools have been integrated into a BIM environment to measure and process building data that are useful for the end-users (design team) to compare different retrofit solutions. In this framework, the group has developed a method for measuring occupants’ behaviour to create behavioural model to enhance the building simulation. 
  • P2Endure (Plug-and-Play product and process innovation for Energy-efficient building deep renovation, 2016-2020, GA 723391) – H2020-EE-2016-PPP.  The project aims at demonstrating the feasibility of Plag&Play solution for buildings deep renovation, with a BIM-based process. In this context, the group is developing a measurement method and system to analyse the building performance before and after renovation. This will cover also the monitoring of the Indoor Environmental Quality, with the application of the Comfort Eye technology in select demonstration cases. 
  • RenoZEB (Accelerating nearly zero energy renovation for buildings and neighbourhoods, 2017-2021, GA 768718) – H2020-EEB-2017. The project wants to develop a holistic approach for buildings renovation toward the nZEB standard. The group is developing an innovative sensing façade element for an optimized building management based on indoor and outdoor data. This will be complemented with the development of non-intrusive techniques for the monitoring of occupants’ physiological parameters.
  • BIM-SPEED (Harmonised Building Information Speedway for Energy-Efficient Renovation, 2018-2022, GA 820553) – H2020-NMBP-EEB-2018. The project is developing a BIM platform for buildings renovation. In this context, the group is developing innovative and non-intrusive techniques, integrated with the BIM environment for bidirectional data exchange, to measure buildings data.