NASA is joining forces with Integrated Building Solutions (IBS) to tackle a new frontier – the energy efficiency of buildings.

“This collaboration… will bring NASA technologies down to Earth,” says NASA Ames Research Center associate director Steven Zornetzer. “We are… applying NASA aerospace technologies to our everyday living and working environments.”

The collaboration will repurpose NASA software systems originally developed for everything from aircraft control to Mars mission planning to monitor and manage the environmental performance of office and research buildings.

NASA software will be integrated with IBS’s Intelligent Building Interface System to produce a monitoring and management system will collect data from sensors around a building and integrated it with information about local weather and occupancy.

The system will aim to improve the building’s energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption and increase worker comfort.

“The integrated intelligent controls system... will use information to plan and implement a control strategy to maintain the comfort of the occupants, while minimizing energy consumption and its carbon footprint,” explains NASA Ames engineer Dougal Maclise.

NASA plans to use a new environmentally friendly building currently under construction at the Ames Research Center, ‘Sustainability Base’, as a testbed for the new system.

“Combining NASA technology with our own software represents the future in smart building-control and automation technology,” says Eugene Gutkin, president of IBS.

For further information:
www.nasa.gov/ames/
www.ibs-cal.com/
www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/greenspace/sustainability-base.html

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