Automatic control method of generating sub-systems and sub-system arbitration from the deconstruction of a complex equipment graph

• US 20180359111A1
• Filed: 06/13/2018
• Published: 12/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PassiveLogic, Inc.
• Original Assignee: PassiveLogic, Inc.
• Inventors: Harvey, Troy Aaron
• Granted Patent: US 10,708,078 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/2642 Domotique, domestic, home control, automation, smart house
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2816 Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station; in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom H04Q9/00

Abstract

Disclosed is a method of organizing automatic control in automation systems from a system description, using deconstruction of complex equipment graphs.

Claims

1. A method of automatically generating a system control scheme from the deconstruction of an equipment graph into controllable sets of prioritized sub-systems, wherein said equipment graph comprises one or more sub-systems of equipment;

and wherein;

said sub-systems comprise a unique routing path through said equipment graph; and

said sub-systems comprise the ability to be actuated; and

whereby;

said sub-systems are divided into groups of sub-system sets; and

said sub-system sets may be classified as synchronous sets or asynchronous sets; and

wherein said sub-system set groupings are created for each conjoined routing path of parallel sub-systems.

2. The equipment sets of claim 1, wherein the sub-systems are given a priority.

3. The priority of claim 2, wherein sub-systems of synchronous groups are ranked for control precedence by said priority.

4. The equipment sets of claim 1, wherein the sub-system sets may form unions between said sub-system sets whereby one or more pieces of equipment is shared between multiple sets.

5. The equipment sets of claim 1, whereby said equipment may be classed individually as a source, a sink, or a transport, wherein:

said source is comprised of a least one resource source; and

said sink is comprised of a least one resource sink; and

said transport is comprised of a least one means of resource transport; and

wherein said transport is interposed between said source and said sink, such that it forms a sub-system that may be actuated.

6. The source of claim 5, wherein the said source comprises one or more of but is not limited to:

utility generated electricity, site generated electricity, boiler, steam generator, gas turbine, gas heater, chiller, heat pump, adsorption heat pump, ground source heat pump, furnace, air conditioner, photovoltaics, solar hot water collector, wind turbine, hydro turbine, liquid or solid thermal storage tanks, mass thermal storage well, thermal electric generators including pettier junctions, carnot cycle engines, and/or water sources of irrigation.

7. The sink of claim 5, wherein said sink comprises of one or more of but is not limited to:

buildings, building zones, building surfaces, building surface interlayers, electric batteries, electric loads, outdoor surfaces including snow melt surfaces, irrigation consuming masses, HVAC system equipment, functional control equipment, lights, motors, liquid or solid thermal storage tanks, mass thermal storage, and/or phase change materials.

8. The transport of claim 5, wherein said transport comprises of one or more of but is not limited to:

pumps, fans, air handlers, dampers, valves, inverters, relays, actuators, linear divers, electromagnets, solenoids, switches, wires, and/or pipes.

9. The resource of claim 5, wherein said resource may comprise one or more of but is not limited to:

environmental, liquid, thermal, electrical, and/or energy resource.

10. A building automation device comprising:

a building system equipment graph; and

a memory; and

a processor operatively coupled to the memory and configured to execute program code stored in the memory to;

receive a building system equipment graph;

analyze the building system equipment graph to identify the unique sub-systems of the graph having a unique routing path;

determine the uniquely controllable sub-systems of the graph of said equipment graph;

classify sub-systems together into sets, labeling the sets; and

save the deconstructed sub-system set graph to the memory.

11. The building automation device of claim 10, wherein said sub-system sets may be classified as either synchronous or asynchronous.

12. The building automation device of claim 10, wherein said sub-system sets may be labeled with control precedence.

13. The equipment sets of claim 10, wherein said sub-system sets may form unions between said sub-system sets whereby one or more piece of equipment is shared between multiple sets.

14. The building automation device of claim 10, wherein said deconstructed sub-system sets graph may comprise the static equipment state information to produce the required routing path.

15. The equipment sets of claim 10, wherein said sub-system sets may form unions between said sub-system sets whereby one or more piece of equipment is shared between multiple sets.

16. A method comprising:

receiving a user input to display one or more objects in a graphical user interface that enables a user to add graphic objects representing equipment to a graphical representation of a building automation system; and

receiving a user input in a graphical user interface, that enables a user to interconnect the graphic objects into a system graph; and

using a processor to process the system graph, as to identify the sub-systems of the graph that have a unique routing path, and are able to be actuated; and

generating new graph of the processed sub-system sets deconstructed from the system graph.

17. The method of claim 16, whereby said equipment may be classed individually as a source, a sink, or a transport, wherein:

said source is comprised of a least one resource source; and

said sink is comprised of a least one resource sink; and

said transport is comprised of a least one means of resource transport; and

wherein said transport is interposed between said source and said sink, such that it forms a sub-system that may be actuated.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the deconstructed sub-systems are semantically labeled from one or more of:

the graphical user interface namespace;

the sub-systems source, sink, or transport;

or a set of rules thereof.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the deconstructed sub-systems are semantically labeled and grouped from the constituent object sets such that the graphical interface may provide automated analytics or graphs from those semantics.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein said sub-system sets may be classified as either synchronous or asynchronous.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein said sub-system sets may be automatically ranked by control precedence, priority, or other ranking system.

22. The method of claim 16, wherein said sub-system sets may form unions between said sub-system sets whereby one or more piece of equipment is shared between multiple sets.