5 Essential Components of Building Automation Systems
An automated building system is designed to allow you to control the building's environment. With building automation, you will be able to operate your systems and monitor the performance based on occupancy and energy demands. Building automation systems can also allow for the use of alarms when necessary. A building automation system contains five essential components: sensors, controllers, output devices, communication protocols, and a user interface.
#1: Sensors
One of the most important components of a building automation system is the sensors. With a fully automated system, the sensors are at the heart of the system. There are multiple types of sensors that you can include in your automated system.
To start with, you can have motion security sensors. These are basic sensors that are used on doors and windows to alert you when they are opened when the alarm is engaged. Next, there are a variety of more advanced sensors that you can use that will help you monitor the environment. You can have sensors that measure the temperature in each room of the building. You can have sensors that measure the humidity throughout the building. You can even have sensors that measure things such as daylight and room occupancy. Finally, there are safety sensors, such as fire sensors, smoke sensors, CO2 sensors, and water sensors. These sensors will alert you to a hazard.
#2: Controllers
All the sensors that you install need to be brought together, which is where the controllers come into play. The controllers help to gather up data from all the sensors, and then take that information and decide what to do with that information. The controllers are basically the brains of the operation and make some automated decisions.
#3: Output Devices
Next, there are output devices. The output device is usually things such as relays and actuators that take commands from the controllers and then put those commands into action.
#4: Communication Protocols
Further, there are communication protocols. This is the language that your various components use to communicate with one another. It is basically the programing language that is used to connect the sensors, controllers, output devices, and user interface.
#5: User Interface
There are some elements that you are going to want to take care of on your own. That is where a user interface comes into play. With the user interface, you can program how the control and output devices respond to different sets of date from the sensor. This is where you set-up how you want the program to work, and how you can generate reports and data about the building.
If you want to have greater control over your building, consider setting up building automation controls. Building automation controls will provide you with greater control over the environment in your building, which will allow you to create a safer and more comfortable environment.
Share
