NUS and Johnson Controls Embark on S$5 Million Research to Co-Create People-Centric Smart Building System
The National University of Singapore (NUS) and Johnson Controls, the global leader for smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, will embark on a joint collaboration on smart buildings research. Johnson Controls will commit about S$5 million into this research programme, and teams from both organisations will work together to address industry-wide challenges.
“As Singapore advances its whole-of-nation movement on sustainable development, NUS is ready to seize the plethora of opportunities through our digital innovation activities and strategic collaborations with industry to drive the future of urban solutions. This collaboration between NUS and Johnson Controls will combine the University’s expertise in the science of cities and sustainability with Johnson Controls’ industry knowledge to co-create people-centric smart building systems to bring about impactful and radical changes to the lives of people in Singapore and the world,” said Professor Chen Tsuhan, NUS Deputy President (Research & Technology).
The NUS School of Design and Environment (SDE) will kick off with the first research project in April 2021, which will be led by Assistant Professor Clayton Miller from its Department of Building. The research will use machine-learning to accelerate the conversion of Internet of Things (IoT) data into the BRICK Schema, a standardising model for data labels in buildings. This open-source schema describes smart buildings and their sub-systems in a format that enables software to easily and quickly connect into a larger number of buildings. With the establishment of a consistent schema across buildings, the industry is better able to understand meta data usage across all building types, to improve overall wellness for its users.
“Our research collaboration with Johnson Controls will contribute to the built environment sector’s need for rapid digitalisation and enhanced collaboration across the entire industry value chain. The status quo is that each building speaks its own language when it comes to IoT. With this research, Asst. Prof. Miller’s team seeks to create a type of ‘translation engine’ to convert these individual languages into the BRICK schema. This is a critical piece of enabling technology for Singapore to develop future-ready solutions for sustainable cities in line with Singapore Green Plan 2030,” said Professor Lam Khee Poh, NUS SDE Dean.