Building Automation Systems Using Wireless Sensor Networks: Radio Characteristics and Energy Efficient Communication Protocols

Building automation systems (BAS) are typically used to monitor and control heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, manage building facilities (e.g., lighting, safety, and security), and automate meter reading. In recent years, the technology of wireless sensor network (WSN) has been attracting extensive research and development efforts to replace the traditional wired solutions for BAS. Key challenges of integrating WSN to a BAS include characterizing the radio features of BAS environments, and fulfilling the requirements of the extremely low energy consumption. In this survey paper, we first describe the radio characteristics of indoor environments, and then introduce the important medium access control (MAC) protocols developed for WSN which can be potentially used in BAS systems.