Taking the Open Road

Advanced open building systems are available today and manufacturers are beginning to fully take advantage of the opportunities that network protocols provide to improve product functionality, says Ron Bernstein.

The concept of a control networking architecture, which provides fair competitive bidding on all levels of a system and over the life of the system, is something the user market has been demanding for years. LON and other network protocols, such as BacNet, ModBus, and Zigbee, have been developed to deliver on this need.

In this vein, defining new rules and a structure for interoperation allowed for competing manufacturers to sit down at a neutral table and design for the betterment of their industry. Though a monumental task, it was fueled by the desire to grow the market from a level playing field – irrespective of company size and market dominance.

By creating a common “language”, which allows developers to focus on their applications, development times for new products are greatly reduced and the effort to make products interoperable is simplified. It also provides the added benefit of enabling the many different control systems to work more cohesively in the same system.

Functions such as HVAC, lighting, access, security, energy monitoring, indoor air quality, irrigation, elevators, life safety, and much more can now be integrated into a common graphical interface without any aspect of the system being locked into a sole source provider. This answers the plea from the market for more options, more open bidding, and greater intelligence in control systems.

Wide coverage
However, no other protocol covers as many industry applications as LON. The protocol, which was fixed in the early 1990s, has not changed – a device built then will interoperate on the same network as a device built today. The official name of the protocol is ANSI CEA 709.1 or EN-14908 protocol and is under control of the US and European standards bodies.

The basic rules are that in order to implement the protocol, the entire protocol must be implemented according to the specification. There are no “optional” elements of the protocol, which would make implementations by different developers noninteroperable. Several other standards in the market allow for significant amount of optional elements of the protocol to be implemented at the discretion of the developer. This poses problems for the integrator when attempting to match which devices from which vendors will work together. In the case of LON, this issue is greatly diminished. The main difference between the LON protocol and other languages of equal recognition like BacNet, ModBus, and Zigbee is that LON was designed from the bottom up as a controls communication platform.

It was not limited to a specific application area like building controls or HVAC, but extends from commercial buildings, to industrial plants, home automation, utility monitoring, transportation, street lighting, retail, and much more. This means that it has the potential for worldwide adoption in many application areas, not only a buildings control spec.

Exploiting the potential
All aspects of the LON protocol are open to development fairly to any manufacturer anywhere in the world, and LONMARK International’s role is to assist anyone interested in developing and certifying products through the process. As such, LONMARK works with many organizations to support their design efforts and to ensure the integrity of the protocol and the implementation of interoperable devices.

LONMARK International’s role is to assist anyone interested in developing and certifying products through the process, and the organization is currently pursuing ISO level standards for several aspects of the protocol. This is an important initiative and step in the evolution of the LON. Once LON becomes an ISO standard, it is likely that the protocol will be under the control and direction of the ISO team. LONMARK International will continue to work closely with ISO to enhance and extend the usage of LON.

Advanced open building systems are available today and manufacturers are beginning to fully take advantage of the opportunities that open protocols provide them to improve product functionality.

Especially in the case with LON, where system integrators and suppliers can fill their specifications with any LON product from any manufacturer, we are moving away from restricted device selection based on protocol limits. And, as open systems become the de facto, the benefits of intelligent control can be realized to their fullest potential.

Ron Bernstein is Executive Director, LONMARK International (www.lonmark.org)