ASHRAE Updates BACnet Building Controls Standard
February 29, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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Advances related to the Building Automation and Control Networking Protocol (BACnet) standard, including recommending public review for an addendum that would tunnel BACnet over ZigBee wireless networks, were made during the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Inc. (ASHRAE) winter meeting, according to the organization.
Proposed Addendum q would lead to a reduction in the cost of installation at the sensor and controller level by reducing the amount of wired networking required in a building automation system, said Jerry Martocci, convener of the BACnet committee's wireless networking working group.
"Marrying these two technologies seemed obvious," Martocci said.
"BACnet already had the object and services model designed specifically for building automation but no wireless network, and ZigBee had the wireless capabilities but no object model for building automation. We just had to put the two together to benefit from the synergies."
The addendum recommendation began about two years ago. "During this time, we learned about ZigBee's data communications, and they learned about BACnet's networking and objects and services model," said Bill Swan, BACnet chairman . "Together, we looked at a number of approaches and discussed the pros and cons of each."
For various technical reasons, battery-operated devices, including sensors, will probably be ZigBee only, but powered controllers would have BACnet/ZigBee capability.
Martocci said that the mesh networking among ZigBee nodes leads to self-healing networks so that even if a link between two nodes is obstructed, the mesh network can route around the obstructed link.
The BACnet committee also worked toward approval of nine additional addenda during the meeting.
Addendum j, support for physical access control, was drafted by the life safety and security working group. Public reviews of Addendum j have been announced in journals and other media serving the security industry.
Another addendum being prepared for public review is Addendum i, support for lighting applications, drafted by the lighting applications working group.
Source: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Inc. (ASHRAE).