The Adaptive and Intelligent Edge Computing Based Building Energy Management System (AI-BEMS) project team meeting took place last week to finalize the design of its system. The meeting was held in Qatar to conclude the final phase of the specifications. Juan Manuel Corchado attended as a representative of the BISITE Research Group of the University of Salamanca and participated along with other researchers from Iberdrola Innovation Middle East and Hamad Bin Khalifa University. 

AI-BEMS will provide the ability to dynamically optimize consumption patterns and recommend energy efficiency (EE) measures using a comprehensive edge computing architecture for BEMS. It will also capture data from IoT devices located in homes and businesses and any other heterogeneous source of information. This will include assessing the feasibility of virtual organizations that leverage social computing technology to recommend energy efficiency solutions that take into account users’ tastes, convenience and the opinions of other customers.

The new system is based on an edge computing model, rather than a conventional architecture. It uses virtual organizations with distributed Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) algorithms to improve performance.

The project also plans to explore innovative neuro symbolic XAI algorithms to significantly reduce energy consumption and facilitate model interpretation, as well as build a secure framework to ensure user data privacy.

About AI-BEIMS

In this project, a plug-and-play adaptive intelligent building energy management system (AI-BEMS) will be researched, designed and validated by conducting two pilot tests in a real environment. It will be based on a secure and scalable 3-tier edge computing architecture supported by virtual organizations that will orchestrate distributed XAI algorithms for DR and EE optimization, integrating local generation and storage systems, enabling demand-side management with dynamic and demand-dependent tariffs.

AI-BEMS overcomes some of the drawbacks of existing cloud computing-based IoT systems related to network bandwidth, security weaknesses and service scalability. It implements cost-effective, high-performance prediction of demand flexibility and autonomic power consumption optimization techniques. In addition, this device will have greater business insight, offering added value to DNOs and improved performance for end users.

This article was made possible by the thirteenth (13th) cycle NPRP-Standard (NPRP-S) grant no. 13S-0128-200187 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). It is expected to have a significant impact on future building energy management systems.

Posted by Juan M. Corchado

Juan Manuel Corchado (15 May 1971, Salamanca, Spain) is Professor at the University of Salamanca. He has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2013 to 2017 and Director of the Science Park of the University of Salamanca. Elected as Dean of the Faculty of Science twice, he holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Salamanca and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of the West of Scotland. He leads the renowned BISITE (Bioinformatics, Intelligent Systems and Educational Technology) Research Group, created in 2000. Director of the IoT Digital Innovation Hub and President of the AIR Institute, J. M. Corchado is also Visiting Professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology since January 2015, Visiting Professor at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Member of the Advisory Group on Online Terrorist Propaganda of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (EUROPOL). J. M. Corchado has been president of the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, and academic coordinator of the University Institute for Research in Art and Animation Technology at the University of Salamanca, as well as researcher at the Universities of Paisley (UK), Vigo (Spain) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK). He currently combines all his activity with the direction of Master programmes in Security, Digital Animation, Mobile Telephony, Information Systems Management, Internet of Things, Social Media, 3D Design and Printing, Blockchain, Z System, Industry 4.0, Agile Project Management, and Smart Cities & Intelligent Buildings, at the University of Salamanca and his work as editor-in-chief of the journals ADCAIJ (Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal), OJCST (Oriental Journal of Computer Science and Technology) or Electronics MDPI (Computer Science & Engineering section). J. M. Corchado mainly works on projects related to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, Fog Computing, Edge Computing, Smart Cities, Smart Grids and Sentiment Analysis. He has recently been included in the board of trustees of the AstraZeneca Foundation, along with other health professionals and researchers recognised for bringing scientific knowledge closer to society.

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