Implementation of a BACnet-EnOcean gateway in buildings

Abstract

Energy-harvesting wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have potential applications in battery-free wireless building automation systems, with more flexible implementation and operation, as well as reduced installation and maintenance costs. However, integrating an energy-harvesting WSN into an existing wired building automation protocol is not straightforward. The Building Automation and Control network (BACnet) is a wired building automation protocol, and EnOcean is an ultra-low-power wireless standard, which is optimized for energy-harvesting networks and uses different communication protocols. In this paper, we define three device categories in EnOcean networks according to the energy usage and discuss the implementation of a BACnet-EnOcean gateway to integrate an EnOcean energy-harvesting network with BACnet. Furthermore, we present a demonstration system for the BACnet-EnOcean gateway to verify that the gateway is both feasible and practical. © 2014 IEEE.