Smart and Resilient Cities

Researchers in this area investigate innovative system design, novel modeling approaches, advanced control strategies, sustainable materials, distributed sensing, and monitoring techniques to build smart and resilient cities. This research has applications within sustainable and resilient structures, renewable energy generation, resilient buildings and community energy systems, smart and connected communities, and resilient coast cities, among others.

Research labs focused on this research area include:

• Sustainable Buildings and Societies Laboratory
• Digital and Interdependent (DII) Built Environment Lab
• Built Environment Analytics and Modeling Lab (BEAM Lab)
• ArchiLambda Laboratory
• Responsive and Adaptive Infrastructure Materials Research Group (RE-AIM)

Ongoing research includes the following:

(Funding bodies in parentheses; Penn State architectural engineering faculty names bolded.)

• Biomimetic Integrated Community Energy and Power System (BICEPS) (Department of Energy), Kathryn Hinkelman, Wangda Zuo
• BIGDATA: collaborative research: IA: big data analytics for optimized planning of smart, sustainable, and connected communities (National Science Foundation), Wangda Zuo, Walid Saad, Naren Ramakrishna, Harpreet Dhillon
• CRISP Type 1: Collaborative research: a human-centered computational framework for urban and community design of resilient coastal cities (National Science Foundation), Wangda Zuo, Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos, Sonia Chao, Walid Saad, Anamaria Bukvic
• EAGER: Collaborative research: Modernizing cities via smart garden alleys with application in Makassar city (National Science Foundation), Wangda Zuo, Walid Saad, John Zhai
• Optimal co-design of integrated thermal-electrical networks and control systems for grid-interactive efficient district (GED) energy systems (U.S. Department of Energy), Wangda Zuo, Kyri Baker, Michael Wetter, Kyle Benne, Luigi Vanfretti, Atila Novoselac, Raymond Kaiser
• Integrated urban outdoor and indoor hazard prediction (Defense Threat Reduction Agency via Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Wangda Zuo
• Comprehensive pliant permissive priority optimization (U.S. Department of Energy via Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Wangda Zuo
• Design, modeling, and construction of a smart, sustainable, and resilient community testbed (Start-up Funding), Wangda Zuo
• Deep learning-based predictive urban building energy management under small data (Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences), Yuqing Hu, Jianli Chen
• Community electricity resilience analysis under the transformation of a hybrid energy system (start-up funding), Yuqing Hu, Wangda Zuo
• Solar energy utilization for urban greenhouses (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Julian Wang, Robert Berghage
• Combined heat and power control (U.S. Department of Energy) James Freihaut
• Secure grid transformation: Connecting the “grid of things” to the “grid of people” Using a secure transactive energy framework (Qatar National Research Foundation), Somayeh Asadi
• Uncertainty-aware transactive building controls (Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment), Greg Pavlak, Uday Shanbhag
• Considering local construction technology as part of resilience (National Science Foundation), Rebecca Napolitano
• Prioritization of structural inspections in post-hazard zones (U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation), Rebecca Napolitano, Mariantoinetta Guitierrez-Soto
• Augmenting human-technology interfaces in post-hazard zones (U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation), Rebecca Napolitano, Simon Miller
• Passive, distributed sensing for wide-scale structural health monitoring applications (U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation), Rebecca Napolitano, Wesley Reinhart, Juan Pablo Gevaudan
• Corrosion performance of embedded steel reinforcement in modern concrete technologies (Convergence Center for Living Multifunctional Material Systems), Juan Pablo Gevaudan, Michael Moseler
• Advanced service life prediction of low-CO2 cementitious materials for resilient infrastructure (National Science Foundation), Juan Pablo Gevaudan
• The Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative Integrated Field Laboratory (Department of Energy), Benjamin Zaitchik, Kenneth Davis, Rahman Azari, Wangda Zuo, Esther Obonyo, et al.
• Net Zero Carbon Communities (NZCC) Application In Makassar City (U.S. Department of State and National Science Foundation), Wangda Zuo
• An Advanced Co-Design Toolkit for Equitable Carbonization of Rural Community Energy Systems (U.S. Department of Energy), Julia Ho, Wangda Zuo