Developing WSN/BIM-Based Environmental Monitoring Management System for Parking Garages in Smart Cities

Abstract

In recent years, there have been many serious problems with air pollution (such as hazardous gases) in environmental management for parking garages of cities. These problems should be continuously improved and enhanced for smart cities. Building information modeling (BIM) has been revolutionary in construction industry applications; it integrates different kinds of construction information into a 3D digital model and can be applied in all stages of a project lifecycle. Furthermore, the wireless sensor network (WSN) is an important key technology in Internet of Things (IoT) development. In order to improve the performance of environmental monitoring management of parking garages in smart cities, this study proposes a planning approach for integration of WSN and BIM technologies and develops an advanced monitoring and control system for underground parking garage environment monitoring, adopting WSN and BIM technologies for digital twin (DT) application of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). Many WSN nodes with sensing and control capabilities were placed in a parking garage to collect carbon monoxide (CO), temperature, and humidity conditions in real time. All the collected information was transferred by a WSN self-constituted network, and the different location conditions were integrated and dynamically displayed on corresponding spatial components of a 3D BIM model. The proposed system was applied in a case study of a parking garage in Taipei to verify the system and demonstrate its effectiveness in practice. The results demonstrate that the proposed system is a visually effective monitoring system for environmental monitoring management. Finally, this study proposes a conclusion, suggestions, benefits, and limitations for further application.