The Development and Integration of Advanced Control and Monitoring Systems in the Built Environment

1. Introduction
The subject I would like to cover is Integration of Building Services Electronic Control Systems e.g. fire alarm and detection systems, intruder alarms, panic alarms, etc in conjunction with advanced reporting systems, e.g. energy, self diagnosing systems, self testing systems and exception reporting. Collectively these would be appraised for technical issues, quality issues such as reliability and finally cost implications in terms of revenue and capital. In my report, I propose to investigate the opportunities for the building owner to use multi-vendor (Open) systems and the technologies available to help incorporate integrated systems in order to deliver reductions in capital and revenue cost and deliver improved services to the client. In addition, I propose to report on how I have developed advanced reporting and self diagnosing control and specialist monitoring systems, utilising the strengths of open systems and the operational advantages to the users and the maintainers provided by integration of these systems.

2.

Background

In the 1980s and 1990s electronic control and safety systems started to replace the earlier electro-mechanical systems, enabling more flexible control and monitoring of engineering systems such as air conditioning. These separate systems continued to be installed separately, typically monitoring and indicating alarms for the building operator to action e.g. fire alarms, intruder alarms, medical gas alarms etc. Traditionally, the manufacturers have been the only organisations capable of maintaining their own systems due to the complexity of the operating systems and Internal programmes which are often individually tailored to the manufacturers requirements. It is often either not commercially viable for potential competitors to train their employees on a competitors system, or the manufacturer has prevented either the client or external maintainer from making system level or strategic changes to the installation exampled by manufacturers password access etc. Initially, manufacturers were slow to realise the commercial value of closed systems (earlier electro-mechanical systems could be maintained by anyone with a good understanding of this technology). Clients have also been slow to understand the true life cost of BMS and other specialist alarm and control systems mainly due to their accounting procedures not being able to report their true cost of capital projects, maintenance and upgrade costs and easily bench mark these with respect to their usefulness compared to other systems. Subsequently, when manufacturers of BMS and other specialist alarm and control systems became established on a site, the competitive edge tends to be lost, and the manufacturer has
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less incentive to further develop their systems, compared to the advances made by other manufacturers using similar micro processor technologies in other industries. For example in the automotive industry, the integration of once separate systems is bringing marketing and competitive benefits to that industry. For these reasons, open systems such as BacNet and the LonWorks Protocol were developed, allowing clients to develop with likeminded integrators, more flexible and often cheaper, innovative BMS and other specialist alarm and control systems. I became interested in the advantages offered by open systems in the mid 90s , installing my first system in 1998. Since then, this initial pilot system has been extended and used in over 40 projects as part of my Health Trusts Capital program on numerous health care sites. The development of open systems have allowed me to innovate numerous control and monitoring strategies and to integrate many BMS and other specialist alarm and control systems.

3.

Aim

To demonstrate the following: a) Basic control theory, including control algorithms relating to systems in the built environment b) Types of systems available c) The advantages and disadvantages of current systems from a technical stand point d) Methods available for integrating systems utilizing single vendor or legacy systems compared to open protocol systems such as BacNet, LonWorks etc. e) The benefits of integrated systems including: I. Improved Reliability II. Reduced Capital costs III. Reduced Revenue costs IV. Increased opportunities for energy conservation, through connectivity benefits V. Introduction of full system logs to comply with controls assurance requirements VI. Introduction of self diagnosing systems to improve system availability VII. Introduction of self testing systems such as fire alarms, emergency lights etc. VIII. Providing systems that empower the customer to monitor and adjust their environment

4.
a)

Technical Content and Description

I propose to technically appraise various systems and protocols available and compare them where possible with the more traditional BMS systems. I will outline the strengths of industry standard protocols (including those used in other much larger industries e.g. transport and manufacturing), and how the stability, reliability and durability of these protocols can help in the building services industry to develop more advanced forms of control and monitoring systems. This will lead to a review of the reliability of building services systems gained by applying reliability centred monitoring techniques to the monitoring systems and monitoring of plant.
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b)

I propose to appraise the cable infrastructure savings provided by systems integration and appraise these with the potential risks arising from integrating data flow with particular respect to life systems such as fire alarms. To detail and demonstrate how I have utilised my understanding of scientific and engineering principles, to develop monitoring systems to monitor the BMS itself as well as other specialist systems including: HVAC control systems, Medical Gas alarm systems

c)

d)

To detail and demonstrate how I have utilised my understanding of scientific and engineering principles to develop the integration of building services control systems with other specialist engineering control, monitoring and reporting systems utilising common communication protocols. The systems integrated will include: HVAC control systems, Medical Gas alarm systems Fire alarms Emergency lighting installations Panic alarms Intruder alarms I will also cover the utilisation of common input and output devices to provide shared inputs and outputs to and from numerous control and monitoring systems traditionally installed as separate systems. I will also demonstrate how these integrated systems have other benefits including: I. Social benefits, with increased reliability of life systems e.g. medical gas delivery systems II. Reduced capital costs III. Reduced revenue costs IV. Improved reliability, through using industry standard components, reducing the points count by integration V. Reduced installation and commissioning times by reducing the quantity of cabling and components installed. VI. Reduced environmental impact through reduced components and being able to take advantage of prefabricated integrated components such as pumps with built in controls and VSD. VII. Environmental benefits through improved energy savings

VIII. Better empowerment of the customer through better user interfaces such as web based adjustment of systems and email to provide log information to assist with controls assurance standards and give early warning of plant/system problems
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e)

To detail and demonstrate how I have utilised my understanding of scientific and engineering principles to develop advanced control strategies utilising the benefits of integrated systems. These systems will include: HVAC control systems, Fire alarms Emergency lighting installations Panic alarms Intruder alarms Lighting controls

f)

With the use of appendices I propose to further illustrate in more detail the scientific modelling and engineering analysis that I have used to: I. Solve typical engineering problems, and II. To develop the opportunities offered by integrating systems.

5.

Reflections and conclusions

I propose to take the opportunity to reflect on the strategies I have adopted and their relative success and failure where appropriate.

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