While devices using the Internet of Things have long been lauded as the future of building management, the lack of a universal system for managing the devices and the data transferred between them has limited the value of the technology.
Researchers at the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute have created a new platform that allows a local network of devices to be connected to the internet and provides a web-based, customizable graphical interface allowing users to manage the associated data.
The IoT Management and Application Platform (IMAP) supports a variety of technology standards for communication between devices, web interfaces, and network architecture, meaning the researchers’ platform can support multiple types of devices and IoT applications.
The first test for the IMAP system’s capabilities came in the form of a solar street light management program that allowed the dashboard to control and monitor over 3,000 street lights in an effort to cut maintenance costs, which proved successful.
The next step is to deploy the system on a city-wide scale to ensure that the dashboard is capable of performing larger tasks such as renewable energy device management, which includes monitoring and controlling solar power stations that provide energy for city-operated facilities and devices.
