Overview

Continuing with the domain you discussed in the last two assignments (smart buildings), you are now  asked to help the contractors install a specialized smart building infrastructure for a company. You are asked to (a) identify and express key quality requirements and make architectural decisions and (b)     produce pertinent architectural models.

Problem Description

Overview

The Smart Home contractors “Smart Builders” we saw in the previous assignments have now landed an actual project. They are asked to install a full Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) solution for a small lab space owned by the water quality testing lab company “Water Bros Inc.” . The lab space consists of:

•    A foyer at the entrance where the reception is

•    2 labs hosting sensitive measuring and analysis equipment,

•    2 office spaces with cubicles for the technicians and doctors,

•    a board and meeting room,

•    a mail room and

•    a sample storage room

Smart Builders must deploy their HVAC devices so that the temperature is always controlled. It turns out that their clients had very specific requirements which they presented in detail below.

Specifically they want room temperature to be reliably sensed 99,999% of the time, to be able to detect faulty components (temperature sensors, AC,  Furnace) within 1 mi  nute and detect temperature changes f  rom  any sensor within  20  seconds. They also want room temperature readings to be within  a 0.5

Celsius accuracy. At the same time they need to stay within budget because their own investors are    concerned with cost-effectiveness. Finally, they want the architecture to  be  highly  maintainable, and  specifically they want to be able to switc  h temperature sensor and  actuator  (HVAC/Furnace) vendors.

Design

Design Concept

Smart Builders thought carefully about Water Bros’ problem. They propose a solution that has the following characteristics:

•   There are four independent furnaces and four independent ACs in the lab.

o One Furnace and one AC unit for each of the two labs.

o One Furnace and one AC unit for the sample room.

o One Furnace and one AC unit for the rest of the rooms (utilizing existing air ducts).

•    Each of the labs and the sample room must have several temperature sensors.

•    One thermostat controls all the rooms.

Technical Considerations

The components that Smart Builders consider to use are:

•    Furnace to be used is SaharaFurnaceLL50.

•    AC used is PolarFrostB15 by Polar Works Inc.

•   Thermostat Interface is ThermoSetX19.

•   Their custom-made Controller.

All the above fully implement the SSDCS specification (see first assignment; AC has a very similar            interface as Furnace). All the above (AC, Furnace, Thermostat, Controller) are or are controlled through an attached Raspberry Pi connected through Wifi or Ethernet and allowing access to functionality          through Java RMI. For temperature sensors, Smart Builders are considering two possibilities:

•    OmniTempSensorXS3 [$200 each], which measures temperature in one location. The sensor is  also attached to a Rasberry board which can, in turn, connect through Wifi or Ethernet and Java RMI. The sensor offers correct readings (i.e., is available) 99% of the time.

•    SeriousTempBus from Serious Temp Inc. [$150 each] come with a controller (of proprietary        board and operating system implementing full TCP/IP stack) and one (1) passive battery               operated sensor detached from the controller and regularly transmitting temperature                  information to the controller via a 800 Mzh frequency and using a proprietary wireless protocol. SeriousTempBus does not implement SSDCS, but can be controlled through commands over       TCP/IP connections (pretty much like HTTP or IMAP); they call the protocol TAP (Temperature    Awareness Protocol). The sensor offers correct readings (is available) 99% of the time.

The sensors are supposed to be used in a configuration that meets the requirements (room temperature to be reliably sensed 99,999% of the time, to be able to detect faulty  components (temperature sensors, AC, Furnace) within 1 mi  nute).

What to Do

1.    Prior to beginning you will need to familiarize yourselves with technologies mentioned above.

•   Java RMI allows use of classes that reside on a different computer as if they were local. Java RMI allows the presence of a network to be transparent to the users.Review this tutorial.

•    Raspberry Pi are small computers running a lightweight version of Linux. They implement the full TCP/IP stackand are able to connect to Wifi, Ethernet and Bluetooth. They are     widely used for building controllers (from TV Streaming boxes to Smart Thermostats).

Review this page.