Programmers guide to the BACnet communications DLL
Michael A. Galler · 2018
ASHRAE Standard 135-BACnet®--A Data Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks defines a communications protocol for information exchange between components of a distributed building automation and control system.The proliferation of BACnet enabled heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems has enabled direct access to HVAC system data.The BACnet communications dynamic linked library (DLL) enables researchers to implement selected BACnet communications, creating an interface for data collection that is easy to use.The ability to access HVAC controllers from a computer is valuable because it allows researchers, designers, or other users to retrieve data directly from the BACnet objects on the controllers.These data could include information on the conditions in the building space served by the equipment, the conditions and status of the equipment, the actions the controller is currently taking, and other values that may be set by internal program logic.These data could then be used for a variety of research purposes, including real-time monitoring of the HVAC system, commissioning, fault detection and diagnostics (FDD), data logging, or other applications.Researchers can integrate the BACnet communications DLL (BCD) into existing tools, create a new tool with the BCD, or use the BCD with common data acquisition and analysis tools.