Blockchain Framework for Occupant-centered Indoor Environment Control Using IoT Sensors

As energy-saving techniques based on human behavior patterns have recently become an issue, the occupant-centered control system is adopted for estimating personal preference of indoor environment and optimizing environmental comfort and energy consumption. Accordingly, IoT devices have been used to collect indoor environmental quality (IEQ) data and personal data. However, the need to safely collect and manage data has been emerged due to cybersecurity issues. Therefore, this paper aims to present a framework that can safely transmit occupant-centered data collected from IoT to a private blockchain server using Hyperledger fabric. In the case study, the minimum value product of the mobile application and smartwatch application was developed to evaluate the usability of the proposed blockchain-based occupant-centered data collection framework. The results showed that the proposed framework could collect data safely and hassle-free in the daily life of occupants. In addition, the performance of the blockchain server was evaluated in terms of latency and throughput when ten people in a single office participated in the proposed data collection framework. Future works will further apply the proposed data collection framework to the building management system to automatically collect occupant data and be used in the HVAC system to reduce building energy consumption without security issues.