Abstract:

Nowadays the time that people spend inside buildings is increasing. This is especially true in professional activities, since the number of outdoor jobs decreases when compared with the office jobs. The worldwide pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has concerned the population about the importance of ensuring adequate ventilation of the rooms in order to prevent the spread of the virus. In this scenario, it is crucial to monitor and guarantee the quality of indoors environmental conditions, since they have an important negative impact in human health. In addition, monitoring the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) may help to introduce sustainability in buildings. Also, monitoring information allows taking further actions aimed at reducing the energetic consume of the buildings while keeping an adequate comfort for the occupants, which results in improving the productivity in work offices.

For this aim, an IoT (Internet of Things)-based distributed wireless monitoring system was developed and deployed at the Faculty premises. Faculty students were involved in its design so that they are involved in real and close projects aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thus, they can see that sustainability aimed projects may constitute a target for their future professional activity. The designed system is able to cope with a broad number of sensors and devices and can cover the Faculty in its totality. The designed wireless monitoring system may be deployed in other University buildings, since there is an increasing need of developing software architectures of this type.

The monitoring system designed on this paper is scalable and easily configurable. The wireless monitoring system measures diverse variables including temperature, humidity, eCO2 (equivalent CO2) and VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds). It is based on low-cost open-source hardware like Raspberry Pi and Arduino boards. Communications are implemented by means of standard technologies such as WIFI, MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) protocol, which runs over TCP/IP and works by publishing/subscribing to different topics. Nodes are powered with rechargeable batteries, so a low battery consume is important.

A desktop application that permits an easy use and configuration of the system and result analysis was also designed. The application was deployed at the Faculty of Engineering of Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Sensor nodes were distributed in different classes and laboratories. Real measurements were taken during some lectures and exams. The obtained results are analysed at the end of the paper. This project was part of the Campus Bizia Lab program, which promotes the implantation of Sustainable Development Goals at UPV/EHU.

Keywords:

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Internet of Things (IoT), MQTT, WIFI, VLAN, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).