Open AccessTowards Smart Building Digital Twins: BIM and IoT Data Integration
Author(s) -
Dagimawi D. Eneyew,
Miriam A. M. Capretz,
Girma T. Bitsuamlak
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
ieee access
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 127
ISSN - 2169-3536
DOI - 10.1109/access.2022.3229370
Subject(s) - aerospace , bioengineering , communication, networking and broadcast technologies , components, circuits, devices and systems , computing and processing , engineered materials, dielectrics and plasmas , engineering profession , fields, waves and electromagnetics , general topics for engineers , geoscience , nuclear engineering , photonics and electrooptics , power, energy and industry applications , robotics and control systems , signal processing and analysis , transportation
Smart building digital twins aim to virtually replicate the static and dynamic building characteristics through real-time connectivity between the virtual and physical counterparts. The virtual replica of the building can then be leveraged to monitor the current state, predict the future state, and take proactive measures to ensure optimal operation. Despite its potential, smart building digital twin research is at an early stage compared to manufacturing and aerospace fields. One of the major impediments to adopting digital twin technology in smart buildings is the lack of interoperability, primarily between Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Internet of Things (IoT) data sources. Consequently, this paper presents a novel multi-layer digital twin architecture for smart buildings called BIM-IoT Data Integration (BIM-IoTDI) to enable semantic interoperability among smart building digital twin applications. A detailed framework is presented based on the newly developed architecture, introducing an ontology-based query mediation method that provides integrated data access. The feasibility of the BIM-IoTDI architecture and framework is demonstrated using a case study building and real-time monitoring application. Furthermore, the performance of the new query mediation method is evaluated and compared to an existing BIM-IoT data integration approach. According to the evaluation results, the BIM-IoTDI architecture and framework are better suited to supporting the envisioned smart building digital twin capabilities.