D-I-S-R-U-P-T-I-O-N??!!!! Automagical Sensor to Cloud solution for Smart Buildings everywhere

"Let the damn computers do the config-work, don't use human slaves for that tedious, error-prone and time consuming job"

These were the actual words from the Founder & CTO of Go-IoT, Throstur Jonsson, when describing our BACnet/Mesh sensor solution. created together with mesh sensoring company Conectric Networks.

Winning the race to IP

In Building Automation and in many other IoT scenarios the most costly factor is often configuration work and maintenance when adding sensors/actuators. We kill that cost to a bare minimum. No internet needed to run logic in the building, hence, no internet of things! 100% reliable wireless in buildings with millisecond response time.

Again, forget about Internet of Things, we are talking about Internet of Buildings! As discussed in this very interesting post, local control is the key, and we give customers the freedom to choose.

We provide a homogeneous, transparent standard-based interface to all data and all real-time sensors/actuators, whether in the cloud or on site. It doesn't matter anymore where the data or actuator/sensors are. The interface is always the same. Users can therefore easily move modules in your system from cloud to one-side or vice versa. Those are normal REST based services and you can select if you use JSon or XML. All modern software system have support for REST based services.

This is actually the second time we have created a working Mesh solution for a BACnet environment. We have also done it before with the Power-Line communication, PINGO that is an NPLC mesh networking on the grid. However, no auto-configuration, but still very robust and reliable.

That said, I will try to keep this article short, which is not an easy feat for me. Something which the readers of my articles at automatedbuildings.com know a bit too well.

Autoconfiguration from sensor to cloud, first in the world?

1. We have managed to create the first mesh-sensoring solution in the world (?) that auto-configures itself from sensor to the cloud, within a BACnet Umbrella from start to finish.
2. Not only bridging the gap between IoT mesh sensoring and traditional BAS/BMS systems utilizing BACnet. No no no… ALL the way to the cloud! Sensor-to-BACnet-to-cloud. Or a shortcut sensor-to-BACnet/WS (Web Services)
3. As soon as you power up a Conectric sensor it is configured by a template in the DINGO-Stack as one or more BACnet objects.
4. If the template is configured with trend-log objects (TL objects), trend-logging starts immediately.
5. The DINGO-Stack APP "TL-Uploader" then pushes the TL-data on a regular basis to Go-IoT cloud as XML files.
6. The XML-file has 3 sections.

• Security information to avoid nu-authorized cloud-server abuse.
• Header information, a meta-data describing devices logged from and the TL-objects them self.
• The TL-data.

1. The TL-Writer running at a Go-IoT Cloud Server reads the header information in the XML file and creates all structure needed in the cloud server and stores the TL data in IBM-Informix time-series, the fastest time-series database on earth, and in the universe (as we know it).
2. Next time when the TL-Uploader generates a file it skips the "Header information" as it is not needed anymore.
3. This reduces the size of the file almost nothing, important for slow or costly upload links like 3G/4G.
4. Now the data in the cloud can easily be accessed via our BACnet/WS wrapper around IBM Informix time-series.
5. Calculated time-series can be configured and the sky is not even the limit anymore.

The one-site template setup is very flexible and can be adapted for individual setups as needed.

And these are the BACnet objects currently in the template:

1. binary-input for receiving data from "switch.switch" and "motion.motion"
2. pulse-counter for receiving pulses from "switch.switch" and "motion.motion".
3. For "switch.switch" it can be controlled when a pulse is generated, on the "rising-edge" ... false-to-true, "falling-edge" ... true-to-false, or both edges.
4. For "motion.motion" a pulse is generated whenever receiving "motion: true" in the payload.
5. analog-input for "xxx.battery", "tempHumidity.temperature", tempHumidity.humidity".
6. trend-log for logging from any of 1,2,3 and 4 above. How to trend-log for each, you fine tune in the template or use the defaults I have provided.

Future ready

We have generated an auto-configure infrastructure in DINGO-Stack and Go-IoT Cloud that we can in the future apply to more protocols than Conectric. BACnet/Mesh is only the beginning, but oh, what a beginning!

About Go-IoT

Go-IoT provides an open and secure sensor to cloud data pump, acting as both the heart and the brain in buildings, making it easier for commercial real estate owners to create an interoperable interface between the old and the new, controlling and increasing past, present and future data flow from buildings. The secret is utilizing the world's leading building automation protocol as a base, bridging the gap between existing infrastructure and new technology in a seamless disruptive way. www.Go-iot.io 

About Conectric

Conectric Networks develops decentralized wireless mesh technology enabling Billions of battery powered sensors, devices, software and Artificial Intelligence to communicate autonomously without the internet. Conectric offers wireless sensors, routers and an open API. Our goal is to realize a more productive, safe, efficient and environmentally sustainable world. www.conectric.com