Evaluating the system intelligence of the intelligent building systems: Part 1: Development of key intelligent indicators and conceptual analytical framework

The rapid development of microprocessor-based technologies and the increasingly sophisticated demands for high performance working environments have prompted an increasing number of developers to consider adding ‘intelligence’ to their new buildings in order to improve the buildings' operational effectiveness and efficiency to enhance marketability. However, the lack of satisfactory consensus for characterizing the system intelligence and structured analytical decision models, inhibit the developers and practitioners to understand and configure optimum intelligent building systems in a fully informed manner. Little research has been conducted towards aiding in decisions and appraisal of the building systems and components in the intelligent building. This paper (Part 1 of a two-part research project) aims to identify the key intelligent indicators, and map the analytical decision models for the system intelligence appraisal of the intelligent building systems. A total of 69 key intelligent indicators were identified for eight major intelligent building systems. The development of system intelligence analytical models will be described in Part 2 of the research. The analytic network process (ANP), a systemic analytical approach, is proposed to prioritize the intelligent indicators and develop the model for computing the system intelligent score (SIS) — a measurement of the system intelligence of the intelligent building systems. ANP further enables the decision-makers to take the interdependent relationships between the intelligent attributes and the building's operational goals/benefits into consideration. Their applicability will be also validated and demonstrated using a real intelligent building project as a case study. The main contribution of this research is to promote and enhance understanding of the key intelligent indicators, and to set the foundation for a systemic framework that can be used for appraising system intelligence of various intelligent building systems. It aims to provide developers and building stakeholders a consolidated inclusive tool for the system intelligence evaluation of the proposed components design configurations.