The pervasive application of artificial intelligence and machine learning
algorithms is transforming many industries and aspects of the human experience.
One very important industry trend is the move to convert existing human
dwellings to smart buildings, and to create new smart buildings. Smart
buildings aim to mitigate climate change by reducing energy consumption and
associated carbon emissions. To accomplish this, they leverage artificial
intelligence, big data, and machine learning algorithms to learn and optimize
system performance. These fields of research are currently very rapidly
evolving and advancing, but there has been very little guidance to help
engineers and architects working on smart buildings apply artificial
intelligence algorithms and technologies in a systematic and effective manner.
In this paper we present B-SMART: the first reference architecture for
autonomic smart buildings. B-SMART facilitates the application of artificial
intelligence techniques and technologies to smart buildings by decoupling
conceptually distinct layers of functionality and organizing them into an
autonomic control loop. We also present a case study illustrating how B-SMART
can be applied to accelerate the introduction of artificial intelligence into
an existing smart building