DYNAMICALLY EXTENSIBLE AND AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURABLE BUILDING AUTOMATION SYSTEM AND ARCHITECTURE

摘要

A building automation system (BAS) architecture (Fig. 1, element 10) is disclosed. The BAS (Fig. 1, element 10) comprises, in one embodiment, an architecture comprising a communication network (Fig. 1, element 30 and 32) and having a dynamic extensibility capability and an automatic configuration capability; an engine (Fig. 1, element 20) communicatively coupled to the communication network; and at least one control device communicatively coupled to the communication network (Fig. 1, element 30 and 32), the control device (Fig. 1, element 42, 44, and 46) being known or unknown to the engine (Fig. 1, element 20). The engine can be adapted to selectively implement the dynamic extensibility capability to establish communications with and to control both known and unknown control devices (Fig. 1, element 42, 44, and 46). The engine can be further adapted to selectively implement the automatic configuration capability to determine at least one characteristic of both known and unknown control devices. A method of adding a control device to a building automation system (BAS) (Fig. 1, element 10) by dynamically extending and automatically configuring an architecture of the BAS is also disclosed.