Smart System for Social Housing Monitoring
Ammar ALJER, Marine LORIOT, Isam SHAHROUR
Laboratory of Civil Engineering and geo-Environment
Lille University, 59650, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France
Abstract—This paper presents the design, realization and use
of an innovative system for social housing monitoring. The
specifications of the system were determined through
concertation with social housing tenants as well as technical and
administrative staffs of the social housing manager. The system
aims at monitoring the fluids consumption as well as indoor
comfort parameters using robust, wireless, low-energy
consumption, low-cost and friendly interface system. The paper
presents this system and its use in a demonstration apartment of
social housing.
Keywords— Smart System; Sensor; Multi-sensor; Social;
house; Indoor; Innovation; Low-cost
I. INTRODUCTION
Social housing plays a major role in France in hosting
inhabitants with low income. With 4.6 million units, the social
housing stock accounts for 17% of the total housing.
Since the major part of this stock is old, it suffers from poor
quality as well as high running expenses and degraded life
environment. With the increase in concern for the quality of
life and reduction of the energy consumption and greenhouse
gas emission, public authority and social housing managers are
interested by the development of innovation to meet the
increasing challenges in the sector of social housing.
This paper presents the development of an innovative
system, which was designed to monitor social housing, with
the objective to understand the indoor condition, equipment
functioning and tenants’ behavior in order to establish a based-
knowledge strategy to improve the social housing efficiency
and quality.
This development was carried out within a joint program
between Lille University and a social housing manager “Lille
Metropole Habitat”. The program included different phases: (i)
determination of the monitoring system specifications, (ii)
design and construction of this system (iii) its verification in
occupied dwells (iv) its use for the analysis of the indoor
environment and tenants’ behavior and (v) its use for the
improvement of the social housing efficiency. This paper
presents the first results of this project.
978-1-5090-6011-5/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Afif BENYAHYA
Lille Métropole Habitat (LMH)
425 Boulevard Gambetta, 59200 Tourcoing, France
II. INNOVATIVE SYSTEM FOR SOCIAL HOUSING MONITORING
A. Specifications
Important work was conducted to reduce the energy
consumption and the greenhouse gas emission ([1], [2]). Since
the social housing concerns mainly low-income inhabitants
who live in small units, but in large collective and old
buildings, it was important to start by monitoring the indoor
environment to understand the real condition inside these
buildings as well as the expenses related to fluids consumption
and the behavior of tenants.
To establish the specifications of the monitoring system, a
concertation was conducted with tenants of the social housing
as well as with the technical and administrative staffs to
analyze their expectation and demand. The concertation
showed a need for an innovative monitoring system, which
could help the tenants to follow fluids consumption (water and
energy), comfort conditions (temperature, humidity, air quality,
lightening, noise) and state of windows and doors
(open/closed). The system should store data and allow analysis
of historical data. It should also include friendly graphic
interface and guarantee tenants’ privacy. The system should
also be robust, based on wireless low energy consumption
technology and low-cost. The first phase of this work did not
include the equipment control. This phase will be investigated
after the understanding of the indoor environment, the
equipment functioning and tenants’ behavior.
Fig. 1 summarizes the specifications of the system as
determined after concertation with tenants and the technical
and administrative staffs.
• Real-time monitoring of water and energy consumption
• Real-time monitoring of indoor comfort (temperature, humidity, air
quality, lighting, noise..)
• Real-time control of the doors and windows (open/closed)
• Storage and analysis of historical data
• Privacy guarantee
• Friendly graphic interface
• Ease of installation (Based on wireless low energy technology)
• Robust and low-coast.
Fig. 1. Specifications of the social housing monitoring system
B. Design of the monitoring system
Since the commercial offers did not meet the specifications
summarized in Fig. 1, a new system was designed. It is
composed of 3 parts: central unit, wireless sensors and
friendly users’ interface (Fig. 2)
Fig. 2. Architecture of the monitoring system
The central unit ensures the management of the monitoring
system. It communicates with sensors using radio frequency
(RF) protocol It hosts free and open software for data storage,
analysis and display. It is composed of a Raspberry Pi, a small
computer without screen or keyboard, which uses the free and
open-source Linux operating system. Storage is ensured by a
SD card.
The central unit offers the possibility to create a local Wi-Fi
network, which allows tenants to access to data and
information stored in the central unit. It does not require
internet connection.
Wireless sensors are used for tracking the parameters
summarized in Fig. 1. They are connected to the central unit
via radio frequency protocol at optimized time intervals. To
reduce the energy consumption and the monitoring system
cost, we have developed a multi-parameters smart card, that
can monitor several parameters and send data using only one
communication system.
A web friendly interface was designed to enable users to
access easily and friendly to all the information concerning the
indoor environment and consumptions.
C. Sensors
Water Consumption is measured using Izar Pulse
transmitter associated with an induction sensor. Current
transformers are used to measure electricity consumptions.
Magnetic contact detectors are used for the determination
of the doors and windows state (open or and closed).
Temperature and relative humidity are measured using
SI7021 sensors. The temperature is measured in the
temperature interval -10 to 85°C with 0.4% precision, while the
relative humidity is measured in the interval 0 to 80% with 3%
precision.
Cozir CO2 sensor is used for the air quality; it works in the
interval 0 to 5 000 ppm with a precision of 3%.
Luminosity is tracked using TSL2561 sensor, which works
in the interval 0.1 to 40 000 lux,
Noise is tracked using audio sensor including a 100Hz to
10kHz electret microphone associated with a 60x amplifier.
All the sensors are associated with a PanStamp
programmable low-power wireless board (module), especially
conceived for Internet Of Things applications, with an
Atmega328p micro-controller and a CC1100 RF transceiver. It
consumes only 1 uA in sleep mode and 2.5 mA in transmitting
mode. It could be programmed with the Arduino Environment.
Since the communication protocol is entirely implemented by
PanStamp, developers can focus on development of
applications of the sensor board.
Izar Pulse I, magnetic contact and current transformer
sensors are associated with a PanStamp Battery-Board, which
includes a card with the Panstamp wireless module, powered
by a AA battery. It provides analog and numeric inputs to get
sensors signal and to transmit it with RF to the central unit.
Temperature, humidity, luminosity, CO2 and audio sensors
are integrated into a single electronic card. The card is powered
by a AA battery; it uses the PanStamp wireless communication
module. Since the energy consumption is mainly due to the
activation of the RF communication, a single card with
multiple sensors reduces energy consumption.
D. Communication protocol
The PanStamp Wireless module uses the open-source
Simple Wireless Abstract Protocol (SWAP). It can use the
868/905/915/918 MHz free Industrial, Scientific and Medical
(ISM) frequency bands. Our system uses 868 MHz frequency.
It works within an open area of around 200 meters.
The SWAP software stack ensures listening and parsing
incoming SWAP packets then transmitting them or responding
to their queries or command, management of registers, sending
updated data and managing power.
For each sensor, the configuration parameters and data are
stored in a register, which is the SWAP unit with a unique
identifier. The frequency at which each register is updated and
sent with RF can be chosen or the update is triggered by event.
It is also possible to include different sensors data in one
register as its size can be up to 55 bytes. Configuration
parameters as security options and device address are stored in
specific registers and the developer can use up to 245 custom
registers.
A SWAP frame includes the addresses of the destination
and source devices, hop counter, security options, security
nonce, function of the packet, address and identifier of the
register and finally the register value which is the payload.
The Raspberry Pi is equipped with a PanStamp wireless
board to follow the incoming SWAP packets.
E. Data Management
The design of the Database permits to easily match the
physical addresses of the sensors with their semantic values
and to reference the dynamic values regarding the time [3][4].
MySQL, the free and open-source RDBMS, is used for data
management.
During the installation of the system, the sensor boards are
fixed in the different parts of the habitat. Then the unique
address of the board is attached in the database to its
emplacement in the habitat. Received data are classified and
registered in the database regarding their location.
A Java application follows the incoming SWAP packets
received by the PanStamp wireless module, plugged on the
Raspberry Pi. The application checks for each frame that the
source device is registered in the database. Then, each type of
value of this board is stored in the history database table that
contains all sensors values of the apartment.
The Java application conducts treatment to present data in
understandable units to tenants such as cost and quality of
indoor environment.
To ensure tenants’ privacy, data are stored in a local
database, which is accessible only by the tenants, who have the
possibility to provide data accesses to other users.
F. Visualization
The central unit contains an Apache web server, which
permits users to access via a friendly web interface to real-time
and historical data using graphic interface (Fig. 3).
The web interface is implemented in HTML, CSS and
JavaScript with Bootstrap and Highcharts libraries to allow the
design of interactive charts. PHP is used to communicate with
the database to get the sensors’ values.
The web server is accessible via a local Wi-Fi network
using smartphones, tablets and Smart TV.
Fig. 3. Users interface
G. Maintenance
Alerts are generated in case of any fault in the system,
which could result from power shortage or connection. Alerts
are sent to users, who can operate some actions such as change
the battery or re-start the system. More serious faults require
the intervention of the technical staff. Since this system is used
for research, regular visits are conducted at 3-months interval
to check the system, to discuss with users about its use and to
learn from their feedback.
III. USE IN A DEMONSTRATION APARTMENT
The monitoring system was installed in a demonstration
social housing apartment, which is composed of 2 bedrooms,
kitchen and living room.
Fig. 4 shows the monitoring system used in this apartment.
Humidity and temperature sensors were installed in the
bedrooms and the living room. Air quality sensor was installed
in the living room; electrical consumption sensor was installed
at the electrical supply counter and contact sensors were
installed at the windows and doors.
Fig. 4. Monitoring of the demonstration apartment
Fig. 5 displays the variations of the temperature in the
living room and the bedroom during 2 days in February. The
temperature in the living room varies around 20°, while the
temperature in the bedroom varies around 19°. This figure
shows that the regulation of the heating system in the
apartment works well and ensures the regulation requirement
(temperature around 19°) with a small decrease in the
temperature during sleeping hours. However, this decrease is
very small and could be augmented by 2° for energy saving.
Fig. 5. Variations of the temperature (red : Bedroom, bleu Living room)
 Fig. 6 displays the variation of the relative humidity in the
living room and bedroom. It varies between 28% and 37%. The
humidity in the bedroom is higher than that in the living room;
this difference could result from a higher ventilation of the
living room. The humidity is also high in the morning and in
the evening. These high values could be related to the human
presence as well as indoor activities such as cooking.
Fig. 6. Variations of the relative humidity (red : Bedroom, bleu Living room)
Fig. 7 shows the influence of the opening of the window of
the living room on both the temperature and humidity. It shows
that the opening of the window induces a rapid increase in the
humidity and a small decrease in the temperature.
Fig. 7. Impact of the opening of the window of the living room on the room
temperature (bleu) and humidity (green)
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper presented the design, fabrication and use of an
innovative system for monitoring fluids consumption and
comfort parameters in social housing. The specifications of the
system were determined through concertation with social
housing tenants as well as technical and administrative staffs.
The system is based on the use of a central unit (Raspberry
Pi), which tracks and controls the indoor environment
(temperature, humidity, air quality, lighting, noise..), the water
and energy consumption as well as the state of doors and
windows (open/closed). The system uses a friendly interface,
which allows users to follow real-time data and to access to
historical data enhanced by information concerning the quality
of the indoor environment and the expenses.
The use of the monitoring system in a demonstration social
housing apartment confirmed its good performances and
robustness. Now, it is used to monitor 15 occupied social
housing apartments.
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