BMS Fault Visualization Using Parent-Child Equipment Relationships
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Solution Overview
Problem
Building management systems (BMS) lack effective tools for visualizing and managing parent-child relationships between building equipment, making it difficult to detect faults and diagnose issues across interconnected devices.
Innovation Solution
A BMS with an equipment management server that assigns and stores parent-child relationships, generates a fault visualization interface showing detected faults, and provides a relationship creation interface for users to manage these relationships, allowing for the selection of devices, creation, and deletion of parent-child relationships, along with diagnostic information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a BMS monitors status data from multiple building equipment devices, then fault detection capability is improved, but the complexity of managing and visualizing parent-child relationships between interconnected devices increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the complex network of building equipment into hierarchical parent-child relationships, organizing devices into manageable groups where a parent device represents a system component and child devices represent subordinate components. This segmentation allows operators to navigate and manage faults at appropriate hierarchical levels without being overwhelmed by the full system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary visualization layer that automatically generates and displays parent-child relationship structures based on monitored device data. This intermediary interface mediates between the raw status data from multiple devices and the operator, automatically establishing relationships without requiring manual configuration of complex device interconnections.
2Measurement precision
If the BMS generates detailed diagnostic information for fault detection, then diagnosis accuracy is improved, but the time required to process and present diagnostic data increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by continuously monitoring status data and pre-processing diagnostic information in the background before faults occur. When a fault is detected, the diagnostic data is already prepared and organized, allowing immediate presentation of accurate diagnostic information without requiring time-consuming analysis at the moment of fault detection.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces manual diagnostic analysis with automated computational processing. Algorithms automatically analyze status data from multiple devices, determine parent-child relationships, and generate diagnostic conclusions, substituting the mechanical process of manual inspection with automated electronic analysis that is both faster and more accurate.
3Ease of operation
If the BMS provides comprehensive fault visualization with timelines and diagnostic widgets, then ease of operation is improved, but the amount of information to be processed increases
Solution Approach 1:
The visualization interface applies local quality by presenting different types of information in specialized widgets tailored to specific diagnostic needs. Each widget (timeline widget, parent-child relationship widget, diagnostic information widget) is optimized to display particular aspects of fault data, allowing operators to access comprehensive information without being overwhelmed by a uniform presentation of all data simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the comprehensive fault information into distinct, organized components displayed in separate widgets. The timeline widget shows historical fault patterns, the parent-child relationship widget displays device hierarchies, and the diagnostic widget provides detailed analysis. This segmentation allows operators to process information in manageable chunks rather than facing a wall of undifferentiated data.
Data Source
AI summary
A building management system includes a plurality of devices of building equipment configured to provide status data. The building management system also includes an equipment management server configured to assign and store parent-child relationships for the plurality of devices of building equipment. The equipment management server is also configured to monitor the status data to detect faults and generate a fault visualization interface. The fault visualization interface provides provide a list of the devices with detected faults, allows a user to select one or more of the devices from the list, and presents a parent-child relationship widget for the selected device. The parent-child relationship widget includes a list of parent devices for the selected device and a list of child devices for the selected device. Each device on the lists of parent devices and child devices has a status indicator indicating whether the device is in a fault condition.