into business
Virtech is a research and development company specialising in applications of the advanced information and communication technologies. The company applies the knowledge and experience of international research and development into a wide range of services, consultancy, training and developments.
The company provides also competences and experience in: smart sensors, cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) services; large systems with million lines of code and large databases over 100 Mio records; AI and ML solutions, smartphone and tablet applications; modelling, digital repositories (text, images, video) implementation and enrichment with semantic-based innovative services like personalisation, multilinguality, intelligent search, use of recommender services, etc; ontologies, metadata formats, web services, interoperability and standards; data mining and business intelligence; web 2.0, enterprise 2.0 and social networks applications, e-learning and competence development methodology, tools and services; design of system architectures; user experience, open innovation and Living Lab methodology and tools (VirtSOI Living Lab, SofiaLab); web portals. Technologies: Database: Oracle, MS SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL; Programming languages: C++. Java, Objective C; Development platforms: MS Visual studio, Eclipse, Eclipse with Android plug in, xCode; Platforms: Linux; Windows, iOS, Android; Administration: Windows, Linux, Cloud computing infrastructure.
Based on advanced BIM tools and deep understanding of the building physics which is essential to use the digital calculation tools. Energy demand arises from the interior space comfort requirements, which can be summarized as: i) visual comfort: 200-500 lx ; ii) thermal comfort: 20-25ºC at 40-60% relative humidity; iii) air quality index (AQI): between 0 and 50; 1.5-2 air; changes per hour, 350-500 ppm CO2 concentration; fine particle 50 μg/m3 PM10 and 25 μg/m3 PM2.5 iv) acoustic comfort: 35-40 dB noise level. A usual method to estimate the building performance is to introduce model input and using thermodynamic algorithms to simulate the heat transfer in terms of conduction, convection (fluid mass transfer), radiation (UV,visual and IR) and latent loads. Perhaps the most sophisticated and exact algorithms are called Energy Plus, developed by US Department of Energy introduced in different graphical interfaces. Usual input required is: i) building geometry; ii) climate data; iii) site orientation and local shading; iv) building enclosure and HVAC data; v) user behavior and schedule of use; vi) automation control.
The Smart Home service aims at building an integrated solution to provide smart home and wellbeing services based on a cross-domain data space, which will be further opened for other users as well. The main challenges are: interoperability of the technology solutions, secure and trustful data sharing, appropriate user-experience design of the mobile apps, etc. FI-Home will make possible life in a smart home to be: comfortable; healthy; safe; resource efficient; environment friendly; informed; exciting. The main functionalities of the FI-Home service will be: control over the house microclimate; monitoring thermodynamic energy balance; keeping track of energy expenditure of the house; seamless data and control compatibility among different equipment providers; variety of alerting and predicative algorithms to minimize power losses and negative environmental impact of the house.
