Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Using the BACnet Data Source v1.7

Published

Author(s)

Michael A. Galler

Abstract

The BACnet Data Source (BDS) was developed to be used as a component of the Virtual Cybernetic Building Testbed (VCBT) (1), in conjunction with work on various Fault Detection and Diagnostics (FDD) (2) and Building Commissioning (Cx) tools. The VCBT uses real BACnet enabled mechanical systems controllers coupled with computer simulations to emulate an entire building, mixing the real controllers with computer simulations representing the rest of the building. The BDS communicates with the controllers in the VCBT to retrieve data and can make the data available to FDD or Cx tools in real-time through an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) connection, or can save the data to a file for later analysis. By immediately sending the data to the FDD or Cx tools in real-time, the BDS allows the tools to analyze data from a building in real-time and alert the operator of any problems immediately. The BDS retrieves data from the controllers by communicating with them through BACnet, using the BACnet Communications DLL (BCD) (3). This paper will discuss how to use the BDS with the data saved to files. Configuring an ODBC connection is beyond the scope of this paper.
Citation
NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 7825
Report Number
7825

Keywords

BACnet, VCBT, HVAC, FDD, Cx

Citation

Galler, M. (2011), Using the BACnet Data Source v1.7, NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.7825 (Accessed March 28, 2024)
Created October 20, 2011, Updated November 10, 2018