Smart Entity Integration for Multi-Protocol Building Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Building management systems face high maintenance and integration costs due to the use of different data ingestion techniques and protocols among various gateway devices, leading to inefficiencies in data communication and management.
Innovation Solution
A building management system incorporating an entity database, a software-defined gateway, and an entity service that integrates and processes IT and OT data from diverse sources, creating smart entities with both static and dynamic attributes, using multiple communication protocols to facilitate seamless data exchange.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple different gateway devices with different data ingestion techniques and protocols are used to collect data from diverse data sources, then the system can support a wide variety of data sources and communication methods, but the maintenance and integration costs increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal data ingestion service that can handle multiple communication protocols (BACnet, Modbus, LonTalk, SQL, JMS, AMQP, MQTT, FTP, HTTP) through a single unified interface. This service acts as a multi-functional gateway that consolidates the capabilities of multiple protocol-specific gateways, allowing the system to support diverse data sources without requiring separate gateway devices for each protocol, thereby reducing integration and maintenance complexity while maintaining adaptability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary data ingestion service that mediates between various data sources using different protocols and the building management system. This service translates and normalizes data from multiple protocols into a unified data model, acting as a mediator that eliminates the need for direct integration between the BMS and numerous protocol-specific gateways, thus reducing system complexity while preserving the ability to communicate with diverse data sources
2Quantity of substance
If traditional hardware gateway devices are used to collect and pre-process data, then data can be collected from various sources, but the system lacks a unified data model and requires high integration effort
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a homogeneous data model that standardizes the representation of all incoming data regardless of its source or original protocol. The data ingestion service transforms heterogeneous data from different protocols into a unified structure with consistent attributes and relationships, making data processing and integration easier while maintaining the capability to collect data from diverse sources. This homogenization eliminates the need for protocol-specific processing logic in downstream systems
3Productivity
If separate gateway devices are deployed for different protocols, then each protocol can be handled with optimized processing, but the overall system requires more devices and higher maintenance costs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the functionality of multiple protocol-specific gateway devices into a single data ingestion service that handles multiple protocols simultaneously. This consolidation combines the data collection and pre-processing capabilities of what would otherwise require separate gateway devices, reducing the total number of devices needed while maintaining optimized processing for each protocol through dedicated processing threads or modules within the unified service
Data Source
AI summary
A building management system includes an entity database, a software defined gateway, and an entity service. The entity database stores a plurality of interconnected smart entities including object entities representing a plurality of physical devices, people, or spaces and data entities representing data associated with the plurality of physical devices, people, or spaces. The smart entities are interconnected by relational objects indicating relationships between the object entities and the data entities. The software defined gateway is configured to receive information technology (IT) data and operational technology (OT) data from a plurality of different data sources. The entity service is configured to create a new smart entity in the entity database or update an existing smart entity in the entity database using the IT data and the OT data. The new or existing smart entity includes one or more first attributes having values derived from the IT data and one or more second attributes having values derived from the OT data.