Smart Office

Smart Office is a laboratory in Poznań Supercomputing and Networking center focued around the energy efficiency of computers and other electronic devices, such as air conditioners, heaters, refrigerators, lamps. The main idea behind this laboratory is to create a space that would intelligently serve the people inside it and at the same time efficiently utilize the energy.

Below we present the main areas of research work inside Smart Office.

Smart Office


Smart meters

Since in Europe smart sockets are already commonly installed in houses, our works focus also on the integration with these devices. We not only gather energy usage data, but also work on algorithms that allow to identify powered on electronic devices just by software - without the need to use additional tools. The Nonintrusive Appliance Load Monitoring is the name of the methods used in this context. By analysing in detail the parameters of the current we are able to inform the user about the currently running appliances, provide information about their power usage and give statistic regarding the energy consumption at home.

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Personal computers

In the Gicomp project we developed software for intelligent management and monitoring of personal computers. Its main target are companies with large number of computers (at least a few hundreds). This tool gives information about the power consumption of every machine without the need to use additional physical power meters, provides statistics regarding the energy consumption of the whole IT infrastructure and gives insights into the details of the hardware in each computer. Since the installation is straightforward, it is possible to collect information about every computer with just a few clicks. The tool also saves on average 30% of energy consumption through intelligent management of the computers. It monitors the behaviour of the employees and applies customized power policies. The energy savings are achieved by turning off the display, suspending the computer, changing the frequency of the processor, powering off the hard drive.

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Sensors

Our laboratory is equipped with a large number of sensors that gather data about the physical parameters of the office: temperature, humidity, open/closed doors and windows, presence of the people, gas sensors, cameras and much more. All of the information is collected, stored in a round-robin database and available to access through web-browser.

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