William O'Brien

Key Research Areas
Associated Researchers
Associated Organizations

Recent Research Projects

Engineering Students Supporting Heritage and Sustainability (Heritageengineering)

2015/16-2019/20 • $1,350,000 • PI,CO
The conservation, rehabilitation, and sustainability of existing structures and designated historic buildings is a crucially important issue, both in Canada and worldwide. However, heritage buildings are not the only issue. Even the most energy-efficient new building cannot offset its embodied...

SUSTAIN: Sensor-based Unified Simulation Techniques for Advanced In-building Networks

2018/19-2019/20 • $411,000 • PI,CO
Modern building automation systems collect and store vast amounts of data in temporal scales ranging from seconds to multiple years and spatial scales ranging from rooms to communities. But tools that facilitate management and visualization of these data are in their infancy. It has become...

Machine learning for residential building HVAC analytics platform

2017/18-2019/20 • $64,002 • PI,CO
Residential building space conditions makes up 64% of the energy consumption of the average Canadian home. The optimization and improvement of these systems has progressed little in comparison to the buildings in commercial applications and the ever more connected home. As such there is a...

Data-driven methods for operation and maintenance of commercial buildings

2018/19-2019/20 • $33,334 • PI,CO
Recent findings indicate that about 30% of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted due to poorly maintained, degraded, and improperly controlled equipment and components. Given that indoor climate control in commercial buildings accounts for 13% of the total energy use and 11% of the...

NSERC Smart Net-Zero Energy Buildings Strategic Network

2011/12-2015/16 • $5,247,050 • PI,CO
The NSERC Smart Net-zero Energy Buildings strategic Research Network (SNEBRN) proposed here will be based on a previous network: the NSERC Solar Buildings Research Network (SBRN), which completed its program at the end of 2010. The vision of SNEBRN is to perform the research that will facilitate...

Patents