Log collection data harvester for use in a building automation system

• US 8,635,338 B2
• Filed: 04/25/2012
• Issued: 01/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/23/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trane International Inc. (Trane Technologies plc)
• Original Assignee: Trane International Inc. (Trane Technologies plc)
• Inventors: McCoy, Sean M., Gydesen, Shane M., Markus, Christopher M.
• Primary Examiner(s): BLAIR, DOUGLAS B
• Application Number:
  US13/455,242
• Publication Number:
  US 20120215759A1
• Time in Patent Office: 636 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/2642 Domotique, domestic, home control, automation, smart house
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2825 Reporting to a device located outside the home and the home network access arrangements H04L12/2856; for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025; telephonic communication systems adapted for combination with telemetering systems H04M11/002
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests

Abstract

A building automation system (BAS) comprising a plurality of end devices, at least one communication network, and a server engine comprising a data harvester. The end devices are each associated with at least one of a space, a system, or a subsystem for at least a portion of a building or a campus. The communication network communicatively couples to at least a portion of the plurality of end devices to the server engine. In one embodiment, the server engine is adapted to dynamically implement the data harvesting capability to periodically establish communications with, to receive and store data about, end devices and to selectively control the utilization of the communication network in order to prevent overrun or data loss. Methods of handling log collection from end devices in a building automation system (BAS) based upon a distributed schedule provided by a user or a priority scheme are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A building automation system (BAS) comprising:

a server engine adapted to accept, store, process, and retrieve data in a computer processor based control system;

a plurality of BAS devices configured to supply at least one data value about a measurable condition in the BAS, each associated with at least one of a space, a system, or a subsystem for at least a portion of a building or a campus;

a network communicatively coupling the server engine and the plurality of BAS devices and supporting a plurality of communication protocols;

a scheduler implemented by the server engine, configured to maintain a plurality of command queues associated with a period of time when the at least one data value is to be retrieved from a specific BAS device selected from the plurality of BAS devices coupled through the network;

a data harvester implemented by the server engine, configured to determine if the period of time used by the scheduler has expired;

a log collection handler implemented by the server engine, configured to monitor the data harvester and supply the data harvester with an indication of which of the plurality of command queues the data harvester should process;

wherein at least some of the BAS devices have a predetermined network reporting capability that is less than an equally allocated amount of data log space for each of the plurality of BAS devices for a total data collection capacity of the network of all of the plurality of BAS devices; and

wherein the log collection handler is further configured to skip over collection of a stale data value when a predetermined percentage of the time period associated with the command queue to collect the data value has elapsed.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the log collection handler is further configured to skip a pending command queue in a condition where the command queue being operated on by the data harvester has exceeded a predetermined precision percentage of the period of time associated with the command queue being operated on by the data harvester.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein all of BAS devices coupled to the network have a predetermined network reporting capability that is less than the equally allocated amount of data log space for each of the plurality of BAS devices for the total data collection capacity of the network of all of the plurality of BAS devices.

4. The BAS of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality BAS devices is selected from the set consisting of:

a panel, a sensor, a controller, a microprocessor-controlled device, a converter, a thermostat, a furnace, a heating system, a chiller, a cooling system, an air conditioner, an air filter, an air purifier, a fire and life safety system, a security system, an alarm system, an occupancy sensor, an electrical system monitor and controller, a lighting system monitor and controller, a ventilation system monitor and controller, a smoke sensor, a light sensor, a motion sensor, a humidity sensor, a pump, an air handler, fluid and air moving and handling equipment, a terminal device, life science and pharmacological control equipment and monitoring systems, a positive pressure clean room, a negative pressure clean room, industrial automation and control equipment and systems, and a programmable logic controller.

5. The BAS of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the network is compatible with at least one BACnet standard.

6. The BAS of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the plurality BAS devices is compatible with at least one network standard selected from the set consisting of:

ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-1995, ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135.1-2003, ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2004, ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2007, and BACnet-2008.

7. A computer program product, comprising a non-transitory computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code adapted to be computer executed to implement a method for gathering a collection of run-time data in a building automation system (BAS) by a server engine adapted to accept, store, and retrieve data in a processor-based control system, wherein the server engine comprises distinct software modules, and wherein the distinct software modules comprise a network communication module adapted to communicate with a plurality of BAS end devices, a scheduling module adapted to queue a plurality of data collection commands associated with the plurality of BAS end devices, a data harvesting module adapted to retrieve a set of data values defined by the data collection commands, and a log collection handling module adapted to monitor the operation of the data harvesting module;

said method comprising;

providing a plurality of data log commands to the BAS, wherein the scheduling module allocates the plurality of data log commands into a plurality of command queues, wherein a quantity of the command queues available for scheduling is based on a predetermined period of time over which the data log commands are distributed;

extraction of a single data log command from a command queue by the log collection handling module during a time period associated with one of the plurality of command queues for execution of the single data log command;

executing the extracted single data log command by the data harvesting module, wherein the data harvesting module is configured to retrieve a set of data values defined by the data log commands from a plurality of end devices through the network communication module; and

monitoring the performance of the data harvesting module for overruns of an execution time period during the execution of the data log commands,

wherein extraction of the single data log command from the command queue is prioritized such that the single data log command with a run time period of the shortest time period is the first single data log command retrieved from the command queue,

wherein the log collection handling module directs the data harvesting module to process the single data log command only if a predetermined percentage of the time period associated with the command queue to collect the data value has not elapsed.

8. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the log collection handler is further configured to skip over collection of a stale data value when a predetermined percentage of the time period associated with the command queue to collect the data value has elapsed.

9. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the data harvesting module is further configured to only extract the single data log command from a command queue if there is not already an instance of an identical single data log command already present in the command queue.