Valuable information is gathered by thousands of nodes in automated buildings. Unfortunately, those systems and their data remain substantially isolated. Large players in computer networking and building automation are floating strategies to capture and use the information for better performance.

Building automation systems are the brains of commercial and industrial buildings that control their own environments.

The benefits of building automation -- energy savings, improved occupant comfort, added security and safety, reduced maintenance costs -- are all at the top of the list for building owners and facility managers.

In the past decade, automation has reached a crescendo of sophistication, thanks to advances in computer technology. "Smart buildings" gather data about how the building is used, and make decisions on how to control the lighting, temperature, security, and even window shades.

Smart buildings borrow from IT
Information technology is everywhere in smart buildings. They use networking, communications, databases, security, and thousands of electronic devices. The typical IT staff is familiar with the concepts, but not with the technologies.

Building automation systems have borrowed liberally from computing, networking, wireless and telecom technologies. Building applications are so specialized, though, that the whole of a technology isn't needed.

In fact, it's neither efficient nor cost-effective to include unused parts of a technology. Instead, the most useful pieces are adopted and adapted.

SUMMARY

Many technologies in a building automation system (BAS) were borrowed from information technology (IT), and they have since been highly specialized for a limited range of functions. Even if building subsystems all spoke the same language, they wouldn't have much to talk about, because of their narrow specializations. When BAS subsystems are connected, they can solve larger, more complex problems. Some vendors have put forward the idea of using Internet Protocol (IP) as the common backbone that connects these subsystems. Cisco has proposed a "network as utility" strategy, and Johnson Controls has implemented a Web services strategy. The strengths of IP make it a viable contender as a standard for connecting building automation applications. The shortcomings of IP will keep it from replacing the established, specialized subsystems. For widespread adoption, the building automation industry must make its advanced technologies easy to deploy, maintain, and trust.

The results are proprietary technologies and divergent standards for each specialized task. This is despite the industry's effort at developing more broad standards. HVAC, lighting control, fire safety and security networks rely on many of the same advanced technologies. But when it comes to communications, these systems still have little in common. It's not for a lack of technology.

Islands of data
There are thousands of nodes in high-performance automated buildings. That means in every corner of a building, valuable data is being gathered.

Unfortunately, those systems and their data remain substantially isolated. Why not connect them?

Established technologies such as BACnet and Lon were intended to interconnect systems, but stayed mostly specialized for the realms of the engineering groups that created them.

Technicians will tell you these systems aren't typically connected because they don't share a common data communication protocol. A protocol is a set of rules governing the exchange of data over a computer network.

The practical barrier, however, is that the systems are not cross-functional. A controller designed for HVAC is not typically designed to do anything with data from a lighting control system. If there were a third system that could take data from both, it could use it to gain efficiencies, improve comfort, and increase security.

Connecting systems for smarter buildings
Sharing data and intelligence among systems creates a larger, hopefully more intelligent, system. These systems can solve larger, more complex problems. The possibilities are intriguing, even if not novel.

Consider the dilemma of HVAC energy waste with operable windows. Connecting the HVAC network to the security system avoids cooling an open room. The financial return on the investment is measurable.

There are non-financial advantages, some of which go beyond energy savings, comfort, or security.

For example, consider integrating a building's motion sensors, lighting controls, computer network and telephone system. An incoming phone call is headed for a worker's office. Is anyone in?

If the lights are off, the computer is on standby, and no motion is detected, the office is probably empty. A smart building can save the caller some aggravation by routing them to someone else. At the same time it can reduce the HVAC in that unoccupied office.

As we imagine the extremes of integrating systems, the systems themselves change. A phone is more than a phone, a light is more than a light. As Sun co-founder John Gage said in 1984, "the network is the computer."

IP as building network
Whether networking disparate systems (HVAC, lights, security), or creating a whole new system, at some level there needs to be a common protocol. Some industry players are suggesting that the open standard Internet Protocol, or IP, should be the building network protocol. After all, other computing technologies have been adopted for buildings, why not one of the most widely used networking protocols?

CONFERENCE

BuilConn 2006 May 16-18, 2006 Palm Springs CA builconn.com Building automation conference and expo focuses on IP-based building connectivity and the convergence of smart building and IT. The conference is co-located with the 2006 GridWise Expo.

Network-as-utility strategy
Cisco is a computer networking equipment vendor made successful by the internet boom. The company has articulated a strategy they call "Cisco Connected Real Estate."

The strategy is short on technical details, but it proposes combining networks using IP. Specialized networks would become subsystems connected to the IP backbone using gateways that translate between the protocols.

An IP network has the advantage of being a standard component of any new building, just like the phone network. In fact, the trend is toward combining them by carrying telephone traffic over the IP network, thus eliminating the redundant wiring. Cisco is one of the supporters of that trend.

Cisco envisions treating the IP network like a utility, sharing one network for computing, phone, building control, billing, security, and more.

Web services strategy
Another trend in computing is a service-oriented architecture, or SOA. The basic concept is to connect intelligent devices to a network and enable those devices to serve their data to any other device that requests it. The term Web services refers to this concept on an IP network; it has nothing to do with whether software is browser based.

Once a device is enabled for Web services, its functions and data are exposed and available on demand. Other systems can poll the data as needed for analysis, and send commands back to the devices, over the IP network. An HVAC controller might check with a motion detection subsystem to determine which rooms are occupied, then program changes on the thermostats in the empty rooms.

Johnson Controls manufactures building automation systems and facility management applications. Three years ago, the company exposed the functions of its Metasys Building Management System's supervisory controller through Web services.

A company's information technology systems can interact with Metasys in ways that may have been prohibitively expensive to accomplish previously due to the associated integration costs. For example, a central controller can query a company's conference room scheduling program before making decisions about reducing light and HVAC to save energy in unoccupied spaces.

Why IP?
IP is such a common networking protocol that almost every business in the Western world has an IP network. It is tempting to share one network, rather than having several specialized networks running on parallel wires throughout the building.

Many non-computing systems are moving toward IP as their protocol of choice. Telephone systems are headed quickly in that direction.

IP supports both wired and wireless networking, so it works for new construction and existing buildings.

Grid automation is bringing IP enabled devices online today. GridWise, a collaborative effort to bring modern technologies to the electric grid, is experimenting with appliances that communicate with a smart grid. On a larger scale, buildings become part of smart grid. Instead of stopping at the meter, the intelligence extends inside buildings to make concepts like GridWise work.

Does all this mean we're headed for the day when it's hard to discern a BAS from a company's IT systems? Maybe not.

Why not IP for everything?
I raised this issue with a senior scientist in the high-performance buildings research program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He said, "do you want to assign a valuable IP address to every sensor, every light, every smoke alarm in a building?"

IP is designed for high data throughput, and requires assigning a numeric address to each device. Buildings don't typically need to transmit such large volumes of data, unless real-time video surveillance is involved. And the numbers of nodes in a building can be in the thousands. Scalability is just one of the issues.

IP is an internetworking protocol, originally designed to connect public networks to each other. One of IP's most infamous limitations is its lack of designed-in security.

Wi-Fi is the wireless version of IP networking. For building automation, Wi-Fi doesn't measure up to specialized wireless protocols such as Millenial Net or ZigBee. Wi-Fi delivers high speeds, but at a high cost due to the type of transceivers and number of hubs required to connect everything.

Any strategy that involves sharing an IP network assumes that one organization will manage it. Who owns the network? Cisco envisions property owners provisioning services to their tenants, and billing for them, over the CCRE architecture. Few IT departments will be comfortable using and maintaining a shared IP network for mission-critical business applications. In a Sarbanes-Oxley world, concerns over data security and privacy prevail. Physically separating the networks would reduce the benefits of IP.

Pace of advancement is up to technology vendors
Information technologies play a minor role in building automation, and the opportunity is ripe to expand that role. Owners are increasingly motivated by LEED and other incentives to include automation in their buildings, despite the complexity. Many of the upcoming challenges have already been faced by leaders in the IT industry.

Most of the challenges are not technical. Advancements in building automation will require parallel progress in education and ease of use. The people who must learn about them, design them into buildings, and make them work together are not computer technologists. They're architects, suppliers, commissioning agents, contractors and facility managers.

Of the complex technologies behind a high performance building, 90 percent should be transparent. Users must be completely comfortable with the remaining 10 percent.

That NREL building scientist made an insightful remark about automation: "A smart building is only as smart as the people running it." Sophisticated automation will achieve widespread adoption, he said, when a building can be automated in a day using plug-and-play devices.

Ken Sinclair, editor of Automated Buildings, writes: "The LEED standard has many parts providing credits for intelligent use of automation, but the building automation industry has much work to do to show our true capabilities."