Siemens is currently developing sensors that will be used as sense organs in buildings. According to a report in the research magazine Pictures of the Future, thousands of these sensors installed throughout a building could notify the building management system of all indoor air, temperature and lighting conditions, detect gases or toxins, and even neutralize noxious odors.

Scientists at Siemens Corporate Technology are aiming to use the small sensors to imitate nature. In the same way that the senses and nerves continuously provide the human brain with information to enable it to make the best-possible decisions, the processors in building management systems will in the future receive and process the flood of information produced by the sensors. On the basis of this information, the control systems will issue commands to innumerable subsystems, notifying them of the rooms that need to be aired because of too high CO2 concentrations, for example, or in which rooms the lights can be turned off because they are unoccupied. And if there should be a musty smell in any of the rooms, the system will automatically release ozone gas to neutralize the odor molecules. In combination with optimized control technology, the small measuring devices could save up to 30 percent of a building’s energy consumption for heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

An example of these sensors are micro-systems with semiconducting metal oxides. If the system comes into contact with a gas, the microchip processor registers a change in the electrical resistance. Another type of sensor are laser-optic gas sensors that send a laser beam through the space in which a certain type of gas is to be detected. Each gas has a corresponding type of laser diode particularly suited to detecting it because it covers the specific spectrum in which the gas in question absorbs light.
The scientists are also researching sensors in which living cells would function as indicators. Unlike chemical sensors, the living systems would respond to all toxins. The system would measure cellular respiration, metabolism, and the way the cells adhere to the microchip in order to detect any changes in the parameters that would indicate the presence of pollutants.