What is BACnet?
BACnet is a Communications protocol for Building Automation and control networks.BACnet is developed by ASHRAE to facilitate the facility managers or the building owners in the building to communicate all the devices with common standard protocol.
whereas there is no common protocol standardised earlier for building automation which causes headaches for the building owner because,
So building owner has to lias only with single manufacturers products for all systems required in building otherwise building owner need separate systems or software to monitor and control for each system.
So BACnet here is to provide interoperability among different vendors equipment. Interoperability is nothing but is a characteristic of a product or system, whose interfaces are completely understood, to work with other products or systems, at present or in the future, in either implementation or access, without any restrictions
This frees the building owner of being dependent upon one vendor for system expansion and BACnet allows best devices to be modelled such that they are network viewable.
BACnet devices are modelled using an object-oriented structure of objects, properties and services. whereas proprietary systems do not inter-operate making effective control of a commercial building difficult, having three unique operator interfaces on the same desk each controlling a different aspect of a building is confusing and inefficient.
BACnet offers a one-seat Solution by adhering to A single standard such as BACnet.
Systems from multiple vendors can be controlled with a common operator interface a single interface reduces training needs and provides flexibility when the system must be expanded.
These were the goals of a group of Industry people who met in 1987 in Nashville, they wanted to create a Communications protocol that would allow computers and controllers to interoperate the internal functions of equipment had to be represented in a network visible way a standard set of commands and services geared to facilitating building automation needed to be developed.
A standard method of encoding data on the communications media had to be defined. LAN technologies that were popular at the time had to be accommodated.
In 1995, The original BACnet standard was adopted. To this day BACnet continues to evolve the standard is maintained by the American heating refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers.
In 2001, It was adopted as ISO standard and maintains the standard in a public forum according to ANSI rules.
The latest BACnet revision is entitled and sees ASHRAE 135-2010. However, BACnet does not provide everything.
- It does not provide actual direct digital control of a process.
- It is not a control language.
- It does not attempt to provide a standardized method for programming or commissioning devices.
- It is highly unlikely that one BACnet device can be replaced by another BACnet device with no impact on the system.
What BACnet does provide is a method of interoperability between different Building Systems.
Today BACnet is being promoted around the world by several organizations, including BACnet International, BACnet interest group Europe, BACnet Interest Group-Russia, BACnet Interest Group-Middle East, BACnet Interest Group-Australia, Asia and BACnet Interest Group-China Asia.
Commercially BACnet is supported by all the major building automation companies such as Johnson Controls, Honeywell, Siemens Building Technologies and Schneider Electric and a host of others who is dedicated to making BACnet a success through their membership in the BACnet International.
Benefits of BACnet Protocol
- Single operator workstation for all systems
- competitive system expansion.
- Eliminates fear of being an owner to be locked in with a single vendor.
- Possibility of integrating all BAC Functions.
- Interoperability
- Data sharing
- Alarm and event management
- Trending
- Scheduling
- Remote device and network management