New BACnet standard embraces new technologies

The American Society for Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has issued a new BACnet standard. It contains 19 addenda approved since the 2008 standard was published.

The revised standard is 135-2010, BACnet – A Data Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Data Networks. It enables building HVAC equipment and other systems that are manufactured by different companies to work together.

Dave Robin, chair of the ASHRAE committee that created the revised standard said: “In just two years, the committee has added a wide variety of new technologies and contributed more than 400 pages to the standard.”

The enhancements include provisions for wireless communications, a new XML vocabulary, a new character encoding method for providing greater compatibility with international text, and new security provisions for highly sensitive data.

It also adds:

• higher speeds for MS/TP networks and wiring guidance for optically isolated segments
• new requirements for workstations and the definition of new kinds of workstations
• new engineering units to support smart grid and other emerging applications
• a new Global Group object for gathering, monitoring and distributing sets of data
• six new objects to support physical access control
• 12 new objects to support the full complement of all data types, including strings