Using Systems Engineering Practices for Distributed Control and Building Performance Simulation

A distributed simulation between control systems and building performance applications is becoming more and more an invaluable tool in the analysis of Automated Buildings (ABs) for better operation and design. In order to simultaneously fulfill the occupants’ needs while reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions instead of costly and time-consuming experiments distributed simulations are required to investigate the impact of advanced control systems on building performance applications. This paper describes the development and implementation of a framework for distributed simulations involving different software tools at the same time over a network. The main role of this framework is to run-time couple one or more building performance simulation tool(s) with a control systems environment over a network, as organized and sorted by similarity to Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS) architecture. Finally, the paper ends with some conclusions and perspectives for future work. Keywordssystems engineering; distributed dynamic simulation; building performance applications; control systems; automated building; building automation and control systems