A building automation system, sometimes called a building management system, is the operational core of any larger building. Controllers read temperature, pressure and flow sensors and drive dampers, valves, fans and pumps. The protocols are mostly BACnet, KNX and Modbus, and the system has a central workstation where operators see alarms and adjust schedules.
IoT changes the BAS in two ways. Wireless sensors make it cheap to add measurement points that a wired retrofit would never justify, and open APIs let data flow out to analytics and energy platforms. The challenge is that many buildings run older controllers with limited interfaces, so an integration layer is usually needed. The BAS is also the system that HVAC optimization and demand response programs act on.
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