Safety- and Security-Critical Services in Building Automation and Control Systems

A building automation and control system (BACS) is used to integrate different kinds of services into a single system to provide automated combined services and, consequently, ease maintenance and save costs. Typical services are heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, as well as lighting and shading. Later on, security-critical services and, in recent times, safety-critical ones have also been integrated into the BACS. Today, the two last-mentioned types of services are realized by closed subsystems as part of the BACS. Such an approach makes the management and maintenance of the BACS less efficient and does not allow combined security- and safety-critical (s&s) services. This paper presents a common approach on how to engineer a safety- and security-related building automation technology. It shall be the basis of a BACS that is able to provide combined s&s and standard services. Hence, closed subsystems in the BACS can be avoided, and new services can be offered. Such a new service is delineated, taking existing application standards into consideration.