Tech company BuildingIQ has acquired core technology, comprised of the OptiCool and ComfortSENSE subsystems and in-between interface, from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) for $500,000.
Until the announcement BuildingIQ had an exclusive worldwide license to use and commercially exploit the technology in commercial buildings as a component of its predictive energy optimisation offering. As part of this agreement, BuildingIQ obtains all intellectual property rights in the technology, associated patents and patent applications.
The human comfort technology also extends the company’s 5i energy intelligence platform, which was launched by the company in July.
“CSIRO is one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world and was the birthplace of our platform technology in 2009,” says BuildingIQ president and chief executive Michael Nark.
“Over time we’ve worked tirelessly to enhance the data analysis, learning modeling, and predictive control capabilities of this technology, and it remains a core component of the new BuildingIQ 5i platform”
According to BuildingIQ, the acquired ComfortSENSE technology has unique potential to expand the company’s data capture and modeling capabilities. The technology was built to provide individual building occupants with a gateway to share information on their comfort level in real-time.
“The addition of real-time human comfort input will extend our ability to analyse and predict BMS (building management system) performance and its impact on people,” says BuildingIQ’s engineering vice-president Adam Benson.
“Building occupants are the ultimate intelligent sensor in many ways. We’re excited to be able to incorporate the human factor into our platform and ensure that we remain at the forefront of innovation in building energy management solutions.”
Meanwhile, BuildingIQ’s new 5i platform and services provide a better building IoT solution for owner/operators compared to previous approaches due to a five pillar approach of data capture analysis, advanced modeling, measurement and verification, closed loop predictive control and expert human analysis compared to previous approaches.
“The new platform could fuel growth for BuildingIQ and potential partners by providing a common technological underpinning for services and solutions that address market opportunities as they arise,” the company states.
