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RS-485/MODBUS based Intelligent Building Automation System using

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Conference Paper · January 2010

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 RS-485/MODBUS based Intelligent Building Automation System using LabVIEW
Jignesh G. Bhatt
Instrumentation & Control Engineering Department
Faculty of Technology, Dharmsinh Desai University
Nadiad 387 001, Gujarat, India
e-mail: jigneshgbhatt@gmail.com
Abstract—Building automation systems (BAS) are
transforming from the legacy stand-alone security and safety
systems to intelligent computerized network based solutions.
This paper presents the design of a three-layer BAS for a
residential building. Sensors and MODBUS compliant digital
I/O DAQ modules are wired to form an RS-485 network at
field level, that are connected to a PC based main controller.
The design incorporates central servers for-(i) OLE for Process
Control (OPC), (ii) Camera, (iii) Graphical User Interfaces
(GUIs) and (iv) Entertainment. A local or remote workstation
working as a client can access all functionalities using intranet
or internet respectively. RS-485 network is used for the time-
critical process-alarm data exchange, and Ethernet backbone
is used for high speed Client-Server communication.
Various functionalities of the BAS have been validated through
laboratory implementation.
Keywords- Building Automation System, Intelligent Building,
Virtual Instrumentation, LabVIEW, MODBUS, RS-485.
I. INTRODUCTION
Building Automation System (BAS) is a data acquisition and
control system that incorporates various functionalities provided by
the control system of a building. Modern BAS is a computerized,
intelligent network of electronic devices, designed to monitor and
control the Lighting, Internal Climate and other systems in a
building for creating optimized energy usage, safety, security,
information, communication and entertainment facilities.
BAS maintains the internal climate of building within a
specified range by regulating temperature and humidity, regulates
lighting based on parameters like occupancy, ambient light and
timing schedule, monitors system performance & device failures
and generates audio-visual-email and/or text notifications to
building O&M staff. The BAS reduces building energy
consumption and, thereby, reduces operational and maintenance
costs as compared to an uncontrolled building. A building
controlled by a BAS is often referred to as an Intelligent Building.
Typically, the functionalities like entertainment, communication
and information exchange need high data rates, while the features
like automation, safety and security need low data rates but low
latency, high network reliability and data security. Moreover, the
BAS designs for residential buildings must be cost-effective and
affordable to common people and easy to operate without
specialized training.
II. BAS SUBSYSTEMS
The BAS needed be split into various subsystems according to
the basic functionalities as below:
H.K. Verma
Electrical Engineering Department
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
Roorkee 247 667, Uttarakhand, India
e-mail: hkvfee@gmail.com
A. Automation Subsystem
(i) Internal Climate Control
This includes ambient temperature and humidity control
and allows the homeowner (or user) to control the
building's heating and air conditioning systems locally as
well as remotely.
(ii) Lighting Control
Lighting of building is a major contributor to monthly
electricity bill that can be reduced significantly by
controlling switching frequency and ON/OFF timings of
electric lights in a prefixed scheduled or on the basis of
ambient light intensity.
(iii) Water-Level Control
Control of water level of underground and/or overhead
tanks is very crucial – for routine activities and to tackle
abnormal occurrences like fire. Hence, availability of
sufficient water can be ensured by automatic water-level
control that switches ON/OFF the filling pump and
discharge pump as necessary.
B. Security Subsystem
Security camera channels can be selected for viewing,
camera control and to monitor activity. Motion sensing
feature can be configured that will detect unauthorized
movement and generate alerts via audio-visual
annunciation. Audio-video recording of areas under
monitoring can also be done. Past recordings can be
stored on the server and replayed on demand.
Other major functions can be:
1. Detection of possible intrusion
2. Detection of fire and gas leaks
3. Medical alert
4. Tele-assistance
C. Entertainment Subsystem
The audio entertainment subsystem includes audio
switching and distribution on user demand. Audio
switching determines the selection of an audio channel.
Audio distribution allows an audio source to be heard
simultaneously in several locations of the building. This
feature is often referred to as 'multi-zone' audio.
Similarly, the video subsystem includes video switching
and distribution on user demand, and the feature is often
referred to as 'multi-zone' video. Video door entry
system can be integrated with the TV screens, allowing
the user to view the entrant as seen by a door camera.
 D. Communication Subsystem
An intercom system allows communication via a
microphone and speaker between multiple rooms.
Following features can be added:
1. Remote Control: using Intranet / Internet / PDA
with wireless connectivity.
2. Alarm annunciation.
3. Inter-person communications.
This paper presents a design of BAS based on a wired-network
operating on RS-485/MODBUS protocol for a residential building.
For automation, MODBUS protocol is used for data
communication. Although not formally standardized, it is regarded
as an open protocol[1][2]. The physical layer of communication
system is an RS-485 two-wire network, chosen for its simplicity,
low cost and adequate data bandwidth. At the management level,
the high-bandwidth Ethernet technology is used. Remote operation
of the BAS is provided by the TCP/IP-based Intranet/Internet.
The next section presents a detailed design of a BAS for a
residential building, including the design objectives, BAS
functions and the hardware and software of the system. The design
has been validated by implementing most of the functionalities and
all the network technologies selected for the BAS in laboratory,
and its results are reported here. The paper ends with concluding
notes and showing future scope of work in form of suggestions for
value addition to the proposed work.
III. DESIGN OF BAS
A. Design Objectives
Following are the design objectives of the proposed BAS for
residential buildings:
1. Energy conservation by switching off lights when not
required.
2. Security of residents from intruders.
3. Safety against fire and gas leakage.
4. Remote operation (control) of any electric appliance from a
central location within the building as well as from outside
the building.
5. Connectivity to the Internet to meet information, e-services
and communication needs of the residents.
6. Access to a central digital entertainment library.
7. Simple and user-friendly Human Machine Interface (HMI).
8. Low cost of the solution.
9. Simplicity, future expandability and interoperability.
B. BAS Functions
The system has been designed to perform the functions
mentioned below:
1. Reporting alarms and status of different areas under
coverage in the GUI.
2. Alarm reporting by audio-visual annunciation.
3. Provides control of various devices via GUI.
4. Live video of view (with audio) captured by IP camera
and its live streaming as well as recording facility.
5. Entertainment panel provides continuous broadcast of
live radio via GUI.
6. Entertainment panel provides unique video-on-demand
facility via GUI.
7. Recording of alarms in MS Excel format and
maintaining history of events / alarms.
8. Remote monitoring and control facility from any PC in
the Intranet / Internet.
C. BAS Hardware
The proposed BAS system is modular in nature and has a 3-
layer architecture[3]. Modules in each layer are described below:
1. Field Level Modules (Layer-1)
These are also known as device level modules and consist of
sensors, actuators and controllers. Such field devices are
ordinary ones, which are inexpensive, easy to interface and
readily available from a large number of vendors. They function
directly in the physical environment and are deployed for data
acquisition and control of the environment.
Examples of such Field Level Modules are the smoke sensors,
glass break detectors, PIR sensors, door-window sensors, LPG
detectors, etc. Digital I/O Modules are also included here that
perform the function of data acquisition from sensors.
2. Interconnecting Modules (Layer-2)
Also known as interfacing modules, they link various networks
and/or network segments together for meaningful application
development. These modules enable various BAS modules to
interact either with the same protocol or by conversion of
protocol. They are also used to provide network range extension,
isolation and interfacing at various levels of ISO/OSI Model.
For example an RS485/RS232 convertor used in the proposed
BAS is an Interconnecting Module.
3. Management and Configuration Modules (Layer-3)
The main purpose of these modules is to configure and manage
various functionalities of BAS. They can be accessed locally or
remotely. Such modules are deployed for monitoring,
controlling, logging and archiving the processed data values.
They function at the backbone level and provide GUI for
monitoring and control using the data collected from the both
types of modules described earlier. These modules also generate
audio-visual alarm annunciation with some other useful features
for user comfort.
RS-485 network is implemented to construct the physical layer,
while MODBUS is chosen to implement the application layer for
the laboratory implementation of the BAS. GUI of this system has
been prepared using LabVIEW software, and is very user-friendly.
The BAS is divided into three layers as indicated in Fig. 1,
which shows only one residence with a room, a corridor, a water
tank and a lawn with main entrance monitored and controlled from
the control room. The central servers for OPC, Camera, GUI and
Entertainment as well as remote workstation, that are at the top
(Layer-3) forming the configuration or management modules, are
connected to the ethernet backbone and to the Internet. A PC based
main controller and IP camera are at the middle layer (Layer-2).
The main controller has features like TCP/IP support, Integrated
OPC server and multiple communication ports. An RS-485 to RS-
232 Convertor Module is also at the same layer (Layer-2) as an
interfacing module. This module performs dual functions of
protocol conversion and isolation. Various sensors and digital I/O
modules forms the third and last layer (Layer-1). This layer also
consists of digital input and output (I/O) modules connected on an digital I/O modules perform data acquisition from sensors and
RS-485 network in multi-drop configuration and further to the avails control outputs of main controller to actuators.
main controller via RS-485 to RS-232 Convertor Module. These

Figure 1. Schematic of the Building Automation System.

D. BAS Software IV. LABORATORY IMPLEMENTATION

The software used in the BAS is based on OPC, an acronym The proposed BAS design has been validated by
for OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) for Process Control. implementing most of its functionalities in laboratory.
Its purpose is to provide standards based vendor independent The laboratory implementation of three layer BAS is shown
infrastructure for data exchange[4][5]. on a panel in Fig. 2. It provides the functions of automation,
OPC is based on client-server architecture and enables a fully safety, security, communication and entertainment.
scalable solution for future changes and expansion. OPC
specifications include OPC Data Access, Alarms and events,
Historical Data Access, OPC Data eXchange, access to OPC
server data through web services, etc.
The software used in the BAS is based on OPC, an acronym
for OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) for Process Control.
Its purpose is to provide standards based vendor independent
infrastructure for data exchange[4][5].
There can be multiple local or remote OPC clients accessing
the same data from single or multiple OPC servers and running
the same program.
 Figure 2. Front view of the BAS Panel.
At the top layer (Layer-3), PCs acting as local OPC clients are
connected on an Ethernet LAN and that are acting as remote
workstations are connected using internet. At the middle layer
(Layer-2), the BAS consists of a PC acting as the main
controller, OPC server and OPC client, and an IP camera
connected to LAN. Data acquisition and control modules are
connected on RS-485 network in half duplex mode. At the
device level, a smoke sensor, motion detector, glass break
detector, door-window sensors, ambient light detector,
occupancy sensor, water level sensor and LEDs are connected.
Remote control and event notification facilities have been also
implemented.
OPC server is configured in NAPOPC[6] software supplied
by ICPCON configured for data exchange, while GUI based
OPC client has been developed on LabVIEW[7] (Graphical
Programming Environment from National Instruments) as
shown in Figs. 3 and 4, developed for serving control and
entertainment purposes respectively.
V. RESULTS
Figure 3. Front panel of LabVIEW GUI.
Figure 4. Entertainment panel of LabVIEW GUI.
VI. CONCLUSION
The design implemented in laboratory employs high speed
Ethernet at layer-3 for establishing connection between servers
and clients. Data acquisition and control in layer-1 use RS-485
and MODBUS protocols, which are industry standard. In this
layer, application is implemented using LabVIEW GUIs. For
BAS software, OPC is selected because of interoperability,
vendor independence and other merits.
The BAS scheme presented here is based entirely on wired
network. Rewiring of existing buildings may be difficult and
costly, and hence in such cases power line and wireless
networks can be more suitable. In fact, a mixed-network
protocol at the device level could be the best solution.
VII. FUTURE SCOPE
In modern contexts, BAS is a rapidly growing phenomenon.
Emerging wired/wireless communication technologies are
expected to transform the present partially networked houses
into Smart, Intelligent and Adaptive Homes. Higher and higher
penetration of automation will lead to increased device
intelligence and they would be performing their routine tasks in
vivid situations autonomously and without much human
intervention. Such smart homes will provide high level of
energy optimization, security, communication and entertainment
facilities.
Enhancement of each and every facet is important for rapid
growth and wide acceptance of BAS. Focus should be on
making BAS more and more user-friendly and a part of
residents’ routine life. Therefore, serious efforts should be made
to make BAS rugged, reliable and cost-effective as well as user-
friendly.
This work can be further extended by
1. connecting GSM Modem– to enable sending of SMS
alerts in case of alarm/event.
2. adding more and more functionalities to the GUI to
make it more attractive and user-friendly.
3. trying to build similar GUI for commercially available
Wireless Sensor Network Motes.
4. trying to build similar GUI for commercially available
power line based automation devices and home
appliances.
 5. for adding more and more security, communication
and entertainment features.
REFERENCES
[1] MODBUS Specifications and Implementation Guidelines [Online]
Available: http://www.modbus.org
[2] W. Kastner, G. Neugschwandtner, S. Soucek, and H. M. Newman,
“Communication Systems for Building Automation and Control”,
Proceedings of IEEE, Vol. 93, Issue 6, June 2005, pp. 1178-1203.
[3] W. Granzer, W. Kastner, G. Neugschwandtner, and F. Praus, “A
Modular Architecture for Building Automation Systems”,
Proceedings 6th IEEE International Workshop on Factory
Communication Systems, Torino, Italy, 2006, June 28-30, pp. 99-
102.
[4] OPC Overview [Online] Available: http://www.opcfoundation.org
[5] Randy Kondor, “Integrating OPC into Building Automation”
[Online] Available: http://www.automatedbuildings.com/news/
dec03/articles/matrikon/matri.htm
[6] User’s Manual, “NAPOPC DA Server” [Online] Available:
http://www.icpdas.com/products/Software/NAPOPC/napopc.htm
[7] Online Help and Technical Support Documentation [Online]
Available: http://www.ni.com/support

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