Building application stack (BAS)

Abstract

Many commercial buildings have digital controls and extensive sensor networks that can be used to develop novel applications for saving energy, detecting faults, improving comfort, etc. However, buildings are custom designed, leading to differences in functionality, connectivity, controls and operation. As a result today's building applications are hard to write and non-portable. What is required is a form of mass customization that allows applications to automatically adapt to differences in buildings.We present BAS, an application programming interface and runtime for portable building applications. BAS provides a fuzzy query interface allowing application authors to describe the building components they require in terms of functional and spatial relationships. The resulting queries implicitly handle multiple building designs. BAS also incorporates a hierarchical driver model, exposing common functions of building components through standard interfaces.We demonstrate and evaluate BAS by implementing two novel applications -an occupant HVAC control app and a ventilation optimization app -on two different buildings using raw building control protocols and then again using BAS. We show that the BAS code is much shorter, easier to understand and does not change for each building.

Design and Implementation of a Microgrid Energy Management System

“…The EMS may adopt standard specifications for seamless interoperation, such as IEC 61850 (http://www.iec.ch/smartgrid/standards/), IEEE1574 (http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/scc21/1547/ 1547_index.html), OPC Unified Architecture (https://www.opcfoundation.org/UA), open Building Information eXchange (oBIX) (http://www.obix.org), Facility Smart Grid Information Model (FSGIM) (http://spc201.ashraepcs.org/standards.html). In academia, research has developed programmable APIs that allow us to access energy resources in a unified manner [18,19]. Dawson-Haggerty et al leverage SensorML [20] and define a data model that fits to tiny sensor devices embedded into energy resources [21].…”

Crowdsourced context-modeling as key to future smart spaces

“…There is consensus [14], [26], [27] that the adaptation functionality between proprietary device protocols and standard interface must be implemented in specific software adaptation services, and should not be part of the smart space operating system kernel [28]. Different groups are currently working on solutions for an operating system for smart spaces that allows to interface heterogeneous smart devices via standardized interfaces [14], [26], [27].…”

“…A problem that emerges now is that different abstract interfaces for different smart devices with similar functionality prevent portability [27]. The VSL context-provisioning middleware that is used as base for this work uses context models as abstract interfaces between services.…”

“…Context acquisition contains multiple sub tasks including contacting smart devices, retrieving information, interpreting device-specific results, and possibly storing them for later reuse as past context [8], [27].…”

Taking smart space users into the development loop

“…For example, an air handler might supply variable air volume (VAV) boxes that supply rooms; a whole building BAS [12] can be distributed. It realizes service portability via abstract driver interfaces to devices.…”