Customer Background
Our customer is a US-based leading connectivity products manufacturer enabling field-proven solutions for data communications, medical, industrial, automotive, and consumer electronics industries in 40+ countries. The best-in-class technological expertise allows this organisation to facilitate a comprehensive range of products across the electric, thermal, lighting, and fibre optics sectors, thus helping them deliver engineering excellence and enhance energy efficiency for their end-users.
Customer Need
Equipping lighting systems with technology to interpret the sensors that monitor multiple environmental parameters, and then relaying this data to the building’s automated hub. The result? Create efficiencies that can sustain energy savings north of 50%. In addition to saving money, smart lighting systems must now provide for dynamic work environments that enhance well-being, sharpen concentration, and promote learning by ensuring access to controlled, comfortable natural light.
Softdel’s Solution
- The solution integrated BACnet and PoE as both could leverage the IP network infrastructure of a building. This unique amalgamation of technologies not only powers smart lights but also provides a highspeed pathway for sensors to feed data into the building management system.
- BACnet stack maintains its own device and object databases and can be manually configured or dynamically populated from existing devices on the network. This makes stack integration appreciably faster for other devices in the platform.
- The solution enabled a control scheme for various parameters like LED light status, real-time energy consumption, ambient temperature, zone humidity, and air-quality monitoring.
- Advanced features like grouping of fixtures and daylight calibration over the network firmware upgrade were also possible due to BACnet.
- The BACnet support ensured all devices on the platform were interoperable and compatible with global standards.
Standards and Technology
Communication Protocols: CoAP, Ethernet, BACnet, PoE, HTTP, SMTP, MQTT
Operating System: Linux
Languages: C, C++, Java, Python, Node.js, Angular
Cloud: AWS, Azure
Simulating Tool: Raspberry Pi based simulator
Benefits
- Seamless communication: BACnet gateway opened up the possibility of seamless integration of solutions to building management systems, which otherwise would have required architectural changes.
- Scalability: Standardisation ensured smart lighting solutions could now onboard various BACnet compatible devices onto their platform and make impactful use cases for the buildings.
- Cost optimisation: This standardisation – which enabled scalability of the platform – also had very little implication on the overall solution cost of a building or site.
