A Reference Architecture for Smart and Software-defined Buildings
This work addresses the need for a structured framework in smart building systems, but it is incremental as it primarily surveys and organizes existing technologies.
The paper tackles the challenge of integrating IoT and software-defined technologies for smart buildings by proposing a four-layer reference architecture to organize concepts and literature, aiming to provide a coherent vision for future residential and commercial buildings.
The vision encompassing Smart and Software-defined Buildings (SSDB) is becoming more and more popular and its implementation is now more accessible due to the widespread adoption of the IoT infrastructure. Some of the most important applications sustaining this vision are energy management, environmental comfort, safety and surveillance. This paper surveys IoT and SSB technologies and their cooperation towards the realization of Smart Spaces. We propose a four-layer reference architecture and we organize related concepts around it. This conceptual frame is useful to identify the current literature on the topic and to connect the dots into a coherent vision of the future of residential and commercial buildings.