University gets smart with building controls

The new IP network will eventually be able to relay CCTV images to a PDA

A Cornish university is using its IP network to control building systems such as lighting and heating, as well as to provide communications services.

The newly-built media studies centre in Falmouth is part of Combined Universities in Cornwall’s (CUC) £70m Tremough campus programme.

Networking the centre’s environmental controls provides staff with an easy way to monitor and regulate the building. And it allows CUC to offer a service comparable to much larger universities, according to Tremough head of IT Nathan Prisk.

“Technology can allow smaller institutions to compete with larger organisations that have resilient staffing,” said Prisk.

“Where they might have 20 or 30 people on a single security team, our staff can provide a more efficient, minimal service.”

Future plans for the network include a system to relay real-time video from CCTV cameras to wireless devices carried by security team members.

“If, for example, a fire breaks out in a wastepaper bin, the cameras will pick it up and the guard can have a video feed directed to his PDA,” said Prisk.

“So even while he is moving from the security centre to the fire, he has his eye on the event.”

The smart building network scheme builds on CUC’s early adoption of voice over IP (VoIP) telephony in 2000.

“We are not a huge university, so we have to find ways to make equipment work for us, and not the other way round” said Prisk.

“We were the first university in the country to deploy VoIP, and until recently we were outstripping places such as Oxford and Brunel.

“Then we realised that the advantages of having the phone system on the network could also be applied to a building’s other facilities.”

The CUC system uses technology from Logicalis and Cisco.