Page 497 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

An intelligent building typically has a lighting management system across all the usable footprint of
the building. It will need to be energy efficient with LED fixtures, have dimming capability, be
networked and controllable from almost any location. It also should have a local, zonal and global
(building) wide schedule and override capabilities. Daylight harvesting, that is maximizing the use of
sunlight to minimize artificial lighting is also important. This is typically achieved using manual or
automated shading, photo sensors in lighting zones and rooftop solar intensity sensors.

Finally, an intelligent building could utilize information from the lighting system to help influence
other systems – for example if a building floor is dark, it implies no one is in the office and therefore
the HVAC system can also be turned off.

7.3.3 Fire Alarm & Safety Systems

Fire alarm systems have a primary job is to ensure the safety of occupants by providing them
warning of smoke and fire. Manual detection is still prevalent, but increasingly building have
automatic initiating devices such as heat (thermal) detectors, smoke detectors, flame detectors,
even cameras. While detecting a fire is important, supressing the fire is critical and therefore, most
intelligent buildings will have an automatic fire suppression system with a centralized fire alarm
panel.

Other attributes of a fire alarm system in an intelligent building may include:
 Addressable sensors.
 Intelligent sprinkler heads.

 Notification devices such as strobe lights and integration with public address (PA) systems.
 Smoke Management and Containment.
 24‐hour alarm monitoring and recording of response.

 Integration with other building sub‐systems
 HVAC allowing for restriction/containment of smoke through dampers/fans
 Integration with access control allowing automatic unlocking/opening of doors.

It should be noted that due to the nature of the life safety aspects of such systems, redundancy and
fail‐proof backup is critical and in many cases required by law. These control systems are often not
directly linked to other control systems to ensure that they are isolated from potential faults in other
systems impacting the fire systems.

7.3.4 Access Control Systems

Physical security in a building is something that we now take for granted and it is accepted that most
buildings will have restricted access. With security becoming a critical aspect of daily life, access
control systems are a critical component in smart buildings. Such system also interfaces with life
safety systems, fire alarm system and other smart building systems such as video surveillance and
HVAC. It can also act as a proxy to verify the presence of a person inside the building for human
resources/attendance purposes.
In an intelligent building, an access control system should be deployed with multiple levels of
authentication as needed. The access control system is normally designed to maximize security and
include specific access privilege allocation (role based access), access to elevators, parking garages
and also be supported by other security systems such as an intrusion detection system. An access
control system can also be used to provide data related to occupancy statistics, which then can be
used for helping optimize the building automation systems for improved HVAC and Lighting control.

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 487