Building control systems include those electrical and mechanical systems that operate inside a building, including Heating and Cooling (HVAC), Security, Power Management, and Life/Safety Alarms that are in nearly all buildings as well as the myriad of special purpose systems that may be tied to particular buildings such as A/V Event Management, Theatre Lighting, Medical Gas Distribution, Fume Hoods, and many others.
oBIX is a web services interface because it does not necessarily allow deep interactions with the underlying control systems. This interface can enable communications between enterprise applications and embedded building systems as well as between two embedded building systems. Facilities and their operations to be managed as full participants in knowledge-based businesses.
oBIX is being developed within OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. Version 1.0 was completed as a committee standard in December 2006.
Background
Presently most mechanical and electrical systems are provided with embedded digital controls (DDC). Most of these devices are low cost and not enabled for TCP/IP. They are installed with dedicated communications wiring. Larger DDC controllers provide network communications for these dedicated controllers. There are many well established binary protocols (BACnet, LonTalk, Modbus, DALI) that are used on these dedicated networks in addition to numerous proprietary protocols. While these binary protocols can be used over TCP/IP networks - they have challenges with routers, firewalls, security, and compatibility with other network applications. There is an added challenge in that the industry is split between several largely incompatible protocols.
Because oBIX integrates with the enterprise, it enables mechanical and electrical control systems to provide continuous visibility of operational status and performance. By exposing these operations using web services, it enables owners and tenants to use the full array of standard databases and OLAP tools to analyse their performance. oBIX enables facilities operators, owners and tenants to make decisions based on a fully integrated consideration of all life-cycle, environmental, cost, and performance factors.[citation needed]
Scope
oBIX provides a publicly available web services interface specification that can be used to obtain data in a simple and secure manner from HVAC, access control, utilities, and other building automation systems, and to provide data exchange between facility systems and enterprise applications. Release 1 provides a normalized representation for three of elements common to control systems:
Points: representing a single scalar value and its status – typically these map to sensors, actuators, or configuration variables like a setpoint.
Alarming: modeling, routing, and acknowledgment of alarms. Alarms indicate a condition which requires notification of either a user or another application.
Histories: modeling and querying of time sampled point data. Typically edge devices collect a time stamped history of point values which can be fed into higher level applications for analysis.
oBIX 1.0 provides a low level object model which can be extended during implementation. While points are directly addressable (and thereby settable), direct interaction with the points requires too much knowledge of the underlying control system for the enterprise developer. The underlying points can be aggregated, the results named, alarm levels set, and histories begun using the oBIX contract. If oBIX exposes a low level object model for control systems, oBIX contracts create the higher level type libraries that most programmers actually want to work with.
Uses of oBIX
Tenant interactions
To keep a public space open in the evening may require a range of calls to different organizations within a building, each initiating an interaction with a separate building control system. To schedule a public meeting tonight from 7:00 to 9:00, the organizer may have to:
Call Security to warn the guard, and keep the (1) Access Control System working in day-time mode until 9:30. The guard may also need to disable the (2) Intrusion Detection System during that period.
Call Maintenance to make sure the room's (3) Environmental Controls are set properly for the event. This may include over-cooling (or heating) the room in advance to make sure that the room will be comfortable when filled with the anticipated numbers of callers.
Call the media support group to make sure the (4) A/V Event Management system is properly warmed up before the event,
In an oBIX-enabled building, these features are accomplished by instead sending an iCalendar meeting invitation to the room and/or its support systems.
Emergency response
The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is a standard increasingly used for relaying information from various agencies to the public and to police and first responders. One challenge that public notification faces is that the traditional Emergency Broadcasting System for transmitting information over the radio is now much less effective, now that the public is tuned instead to personal media players such as the iPod. New versions of these protocols anticipate, for example, direct texting of all cell phones in range of a given cell tower or set of cell towers.
In a similar manner, current proposals suggest direct messaging to Intelligent Buildings to invoke named oBIX contracts, with effects ranging from temporary user security elevation, to initiating process shut down, to notifying in-building warning systems to read messages aloud.
The Open Geospatial Consortium anticipates Emergency Responders being able to access certain classes of geo-tagged sensor information from buildings from within their maps to improve situational awareness.
Emerging power markets
The GridWise Architecture Council envisions an open market or Power Providers, Transmission, Distribution, and Customer Agents negotiating freely for live power contracts based on instantaneous demand/response. The ongoing installation across the US of Electric Meters able to provide time-of-day-metering is one step to enabling this. Another is the development of Intelligent Buildings able to negotiate with the grid.
These grid negotiations are likely to be of two forms. (1) An intelligent agent residing in the building, and negotiating with the building tenants and their business processes negotiates set building system operating postures. (2) An external agent hired by the building tenants aggregates demand across multiple buildings and buys power on their behalf. Markets based on these interactions are considered to be key to creating market conditions to drive rapid innovation in on-site power storage and generation technologies.
Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) is a control system architecture comprising computers, networked data communications and graphical user interfaces for high-level supervision of machines and processes. It also covers sensors and other devices, such as programmable logic controllers, which interface with process plant or machinery.
A distributed control system (DCS) is a computerised control system for a process or plant usually with many control loops, in which autonomous controllers are distributed throughout the system, but there is no central operator supervisory control. This is in contrast to systems that use centralized controllers; either discrete controllers located at a central control room or within a central computer. The DCS concept increases reliability and reduces installation costs by localising control functions near the process plant, with remote monitoring and supervision.
LonWorks or Local Operating Network is an open standard for networking platforms specifically created to address the needs of control applications. The platform is built on a protocol created by Echelon Corporation for networking devices over media such as twisted pair, power lines, fiber optics, and wireless. It is used for the automation of various functions within buildings such as lighting and HVAC; see building automation.
BACnet is a communication protocol for building automation and control (BAC) networks that use the ASHRAE, ANSI, and ISO 16484-5 standards protocol.
Tridium Inc. is an American engineering hardware and software company based in Richmond, Virginia, whose products facilitate and integrate the automation of building and other engineering control systems.
Open Platform Communications (OPC) is a series of standards and specifications for industrial telecommunication. They are based on Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) for process control. An industrial automation task force developed the original standard in 1996 under the name OLE for Process Control. OPC specifies the communication of real-time plant data between control devices from different manufacturers.
A fieldbus is a member of a family of industrial digital communication networks used for real-time distributed control. Fieldbus profiles are standardized by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as IEC 61784/61158.
LonTalk is a networking protocol. Originally developed by Echelon Corporation for networking devices over media such as twisted pair, powerlines, fiber optics, and RF. It is popular for the automation of various functions in industrial control, home automation, transportation, and buildings systems such as lighting and HVAC, the protocol has now been adopted as an open international control networking standard in the ISO/IEC 14908 family of standards. Published through ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6, this standard specifies a multi-purpose control network protocol stack optimized for smart grid, smart building, and smart city applications.
Distributed Network Protocol 3 (DNP3) is a set of communications protocols used between components in process automation systems. Its main use is in utilities such as electric and water companies. Usage in other industries is not common. It was developed for communications between various types of data acquisition and control equipment. It plays a crucial role in SCADA systems, where it is used by SCADA Master Stations, Remote Terminal Units (RTUs), and Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs). It is primarily used for communications between a master station and RTUs or IEDs. ICCP, the Inter-Control Center Communications Protocol, is used for inter-master station communications. Competing standards include the older Modbus protocol and the newer IEC 61850 protocol.
Building automation(BAS), also known as building management system (BMS) or building energy management system (BEMS), is the automatic centralized control of a building's HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), electrical, lighting, shading, access control, security systems, and other interrelated systems. Some objectives of building automation are improved occupant comfort, efficient operation of building systems, reduction in energy consumption, reduced operating and maintaining costs and increased security.
Digital integration is the idea that data or information on any given electronic device can be read or manipulated by another device using a standard format. From the digital culture perspective, on the other hand, it is defined as an organization drive to leverage the broad capabilities and vast efficiencies of digital technology and media in order to provide consumers relevance and value. It is also employed in digital governance and could refer to the inter-agency cooperation and intergovernmental collaboration across units at multiple levels of government. The phenomenon is considered a basic megatrend in the so-called knowledge civilization.
Direct digital control is the automated control of a condition or process by a digital device (computer). Direct digital control takes a centralized network-oriented approach. All instrumentation is gathered by various analog and digital converters which use the network to transport these signals to the central controller. The centralized computer then follows all of its production rules and causes actions to be sent via the same network to valves, actuators, and other heating, ventilating, and air conditioning components that can be adjusted.
C-Bus is a communications protocol based on a seven layer OSI model for home and building automation that can handle cable lengths up to 1000 metres using Cat-5 cable. It is used in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the Middle East, Russia, United States, South Africa, the UK and other parts of Europe including Greece and Romania. C-Bus was created by Clipsal Australia's Clipsal Integrated Systems division for use with its brand of home automation and building lighting control system. C-Bus has been briefly available in the United States but Schneider Electric has now discontinued sales in the United States.
An industrial control system (ICS) is an electronic control system and associated instrumentation used for industrial process control. Control systems can range in size from a few modular panel-mounted controllers to large interconnected and interactive distributed control systems (DCSs) with many thousands of field connections. Control systems receive data from remote sensors measuring process variables (PVs), compare the collected data with desired setpoints (SPs), and derive command functions that are used to control a process through the final control elements (FCEs), such as control valves.
A computer appliance is a computer system with a combination of hardware, software, or firmware that is specifically designed to provide a particular computing resource. Such devices became known as appliances because of the similarity in role or management to a home appliance, which are generally closed and sealed, and are not serviceable by the user or owner. The hardware and software are delivered as an integrated product and may even be pre-configured before delivery to a customer, to provide a turn-key solution for a particular application. Unlike general purpose computers, appliances are generally not designed to allow the customers to change the software and the underlying operating system, or to flexibly reconfigure the hardware.
Physical security information management (PSIM) is a category of software that provides a platform and applications created by middleware developers, designed to integrate multiple unconnected security applications and devices and control them through one comprehensive user interface. It collects and correlates events from existing disparate security devices and information systems to empower personnel to identify and proactively resolve situations. PSIM integration enables numerous organizational benefits, including increased control, improved situation awareness and management reporting. Ultimately, these solutions allow organizations to reduce costs through improved efficiency and to improve security through increased intelligence.
An enterprise appliance transaction module (EATM) is a device, typically used in the manufacturing automation marketplace, for the transfer of plant floor equipment and product status to manufacturing execution systems (MES), enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and the like.
A universal gateway is a device that transacts data between two or more data sources using communication protocols specific to each. Sometimes called a universal protocol gateway, this class of product is designed as a computer appliance, and is used to connect data from one automation system to another.
A smart home hub, sometimes also referred to as a "smart hub", "gateway'", "bridge", "controller" or "coordinator", is a control center/centre for a smart home, and enables the components of a smart home to communicate and respond to each other via communication through a central point. The smart home hub can consist of dedicated computer appliance, software appliance, or software running on computer hardware, and makes it possible to gather configuration, automation and monitoring of a smart house by communicating and controlling different smart devices that consist of for example home appliances, sensors and relays or robots, many of which are commonly categorized under Internet of things.
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