The iHomeLab Living Lab of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences (LUAS) is the leading research centre for building intelligence in Switzerland. Connected within a broad network of experts, it also engages in international initiatives to further develop these fields, contributes to scientific conferences and trade fairs and actively takes part in shaping new standards and technologies being a member of several technology standards organisations and professional unions (e.g. ZigBee Alliance, KNX Scientific, IEEE, IPv6 Swiss Council, AALOA, 4E, terzStiftung). Together with its industrial partners, the iHomeLab Living Lab team conducts applied research to increase the energy efficiency, security and comfort in residential as well as commercial buildings. The research strategy focuses on the three research areas of energy efficiency (EE), ambient assisted living (AAL) and human building interaction (HBI) under the roof of the metaresearch topic “The Building as a System” at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences.

Description

The vision for the iHomeLab Living Lab appeared in the year 2000 when the gap between academia, industry and wide public end-users has been identified. This combination of different parties brings the unique added-value to the user driven open innovation process. The wide network of industrial contacts has allowed securing funding for the visionary Building Intelligence research, innovation Living Lab and networking platform with multidisciplinary consortium of around 100 partners partners like Siemens, Landis+Gyr, Schindler, ABB, Swisscom, Bosch, Miele and around 20 full-time researchers.

The iHomeLab Living Lab today is the Swiss think tank for building intelligence and building automation. Built in 2008, it is continuously upgraded and managed by its team. The iHomeLab Living Lab sensitizes experts and public to the increasingly popular topic of building intelligence and intelligent living.

Applied research projects are conducted in interdisciplinary teams together with research and industrial partners and technologically focused on building automation network infrastructures based on IPv6 (IP to the field, the Internet of Things, web services, smart objects), wireless mesh networking technologies,

indoor-localisation systems, ambient awareness, user-centric / context-sensitive services, plug-and-play protocols, adaptive / intelligent control systems applying artificial intelligence, semantic buildings, energy visualisation, load control infrastructures, smart metering and smart grid applications, multimedia content management, pervasive and embedded computing. The aim is to create innovative low-cost, low-power solutions that are accepted by the humans using it and have a high potential to hit the mass market.

References and Track Record

The iHomeLab Living Lab Facility provides an integrated, sophisticated, state-of-the-art environment to demonstrate the results to experts and the public. Since opening in November 2008, over 2500 visitors participate in around 150 iHomeLab Living Lab events annually. The platform brings together stakeholders from different domains with the goal to set-up innovative, interdisciplinary research projects for creating applied, mass market ready building and home automation solutions based on open industry standards.

All types of the iHomeLab Living Lab events (guided tours, focus groups, workshops, hearings) involve different users from industry, academia, healthcare, politics and public into the innovation process. Every event facilitates the sustainable bidirectional know-how transfer between the living lab and stakeholders resulting in new scientific projects, studies, trials, prototypes, showcases, business plans and spinoffs.