A Wireless System for Real-Time Environmental and Energy Monitoring of a Metro Station: Lessons Learnt from a Three-Year Research Project

Abstract

Optimal energy management of underground transportation systems is widely recognized as a key aspect for significant energy savings at regional level. The three-year long EU funded "Seam4us" research project (2011 to 2014) aims to create a system for optimized integrated energy management, relying on the Passeig de Gracia metro station in Barcelona as the pilot station. One of the outcomes of the project was the installation of a wireless sensor network, in order to track in real time both environmental and energy parameters. The data collected by the network have been exploited to inform an intelligent control system about the state of the station. In fact, a reliable real-time sensing is critical for implementing advanced control policies in any kind of environment. For that reason, this paper will report on the Seam4us findings regarding real-time sensing of that quite harsh domain. The design criteria and constraints that led to the final installation will be argued. Then, post-processing functions, i.e. those algorithms turning raw data into the variables which can be processed by the controller, will be described. Finally, the general performance of the system will be discussed, in terms of reliability of data exchange and energy efficiency.

A review on available energy saving strategies for heating, ventilation and air conditioning in underground metro stations

“…It should be noted that the operation of these intelligent control systems is based on a large-scale monitoring system, which contains various sensors and actuators. The wireless sensor network has been increasingly used in UMSs for connecting a control system with different devices, and this will increase both initial investment and maintenance costs [18,85,86].…”

Model predictive energy control of ventilation for underground stations

“…In order to feed the control system, a proper sensor network is needed, consisting of a number of sensor nodes installed in several areas that provide information about the outdoor and the indoor climate [34]. The sensor node placement is driven by a combination of several different requirements, conditions and limitations of the environment itself.…”

Wireless Real-Time Monitoring System for the Implementation of Intelligent Control in Subways

“…The typical motivation for deploying a WSN for underground transportation system monitoring is safety and energy saving [24]. Several interesting results and practical guidelines are reported in [25], which describes two deployments in two underground railway stations, one in Prague and one London.…”

“…However, the cost and potentially high distance make it unfeasible to operate on the network continuously, implying the need for self-configuration and self-maintenance feature implementation. In addition, several mechanisms can be employed not only for energy harvesting, but also for reducing the energy consumption associated with sensing and/or transmission: MAC duty cycle, data aggregation, data prediction [24,26].…”