Development of an intelligent energy management network for building automation

This paper describes the development of an intelligent energy management network (IEMN) using the concept of a surrogate object-communication model and three-layered network architecture. The proposed IEMN is characterized by its network architecture and application services. From the network architecture point of view, the IEMN is characterized by the area control and management center, the building control and management station, and the BACnet facility. From the application service point of view, the IEMN provides the intelligent energy service architecture to integrate the building management system functions and the facility management system. The IEMN offers several advantages such as the distributed intelligent management and the ability of data processing and analysis online. The hierarchical architecture makes it easy to integrate and to expand.

Note to Practitioners-The paper describes an extension to the existing intelligent build network technology. The conventional intelligent building network facilitates the monitoring of sensor information and the issuing of controller commands by assuming that the network elements all have limited intelligence. The control decision is therefore centralized to some control servers. The proposed surrogate system, on the other hand, allows for intelligent control subunits on the network and transmits more complex information and directions for control decision making. The control subunit will have the freedom to make their own decision on how to achieve the instructions from the upper level. Thus, the network traffic may be reduced and the network no longer has to deal with time critical issues. This configuration allows more room for network flexibilities. We have constructed the basic network with SQL and active server page and run a primitive demonstration in our laboratory. Because the setup is configured over a standard BACnet facility over TCP/IP, the network implementation does not require too much effort. The layered servers are still necessary.