Building control systems

News and Updates

NIST Industrial Wireless Team Publishes Research Report on Wireless Deployment Challenges in Construction – A 5G Strategy

June 1, 2024

In the construction context, integrating 5G networks presents numerous challenges. The NIST Industrial Wireless Team has published an article in the online

University, NIST Researchers Create Residential Building Models to Evaluate Fairness of Electricity Tariffs

January 1, 2024

The increased adoption of energy technologies like smart meters, solar panels, and battery storage has led to a rise in electricity pricing plans with costs

University, NIST Researchers Develop Strategy for Cutting Home HVAC Electricity Costs

June 1, 2023

To help reduce electricity consumption and its costs, university and NIST researchers proposed a strategy for controlling residential heating, ventilation, and

Projects and Programs

Commissioning Building Systems for Improved Performance and Cybersecurity

Ongoing

Objective To improve the performance of building systems by providing the measurement science needed to develop improved building commissioning techniques that utilize embedded capabilities of building control systems, accelerate the adoption of cost-effective commissioning as standard practice and

Embedded Intelligence in Buildings Program

Ongoing

Objective To develop and deploy advances in measurement science that will improve building operations to achieve lower operating costs, energy waste, occupant comfort/safety/security, and smart grid integration through the use of intelligent building systems. What is the problem? Over 80% of the

Fault Detection and Diagnostics for Air-Conditioners and Heat Pumps

Ongoing

Objective Develop fault detection and diagnostic (FDD) methods and measurement tools to ensure air conditioners (ACs) and heat pumps (HPs) perform as designed throughout their lifetime and develop a testing and rating methodology to assess relative merits of different commercial FDD products

Intelligent Building Agents

Ongoing

Objective Demonstrate the feasibility of AI control techniques for reducing the energy costs of HVAC systems in commercial buildings and create a research infrastructure, the Intelligent Building Agents Laboratory (IBAL), suitable for ongoing demonstration, development, and evaluation of advanced AI

Publications

Advanced Co-simulation Framework for Assessing the Interplay between Occupant Behaviors and Demand Flexibility in Commercial Buildings

September 2, 2024

Author(s)

Zhelun Chen, Jin Wen, Yicheng Li, L James Lo, Gabriel Grajewski, Vance (Wm.) Payne, Steven T. Bushby, Amanda Pertzborn, Zheng O'Neill, Zhiyao Yang, Caleb Calfa

With buildings contributing significantly to electricity usage, enabling demand flexibility becomes a challenge, especially when accounting for occupant comfort

Development of a Simulation Tool for the Intelligent Building Agents Project

August 1, 2024

Author(s)

Amanda Pertzborn

In the U.S., commercial buildings are responsible for approximately 36 % of total energy consumption, and the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC)

A framework for calibrating and validating an air loop dynamic model in an HVAC system in Modelica

September 6, 2023

Author(s)

Yicheng Li, Zhelun Chen, Jin Wen, Yangyang Fu, Amanda Pertzborn, Zheng O'Neill

The use of Modelica for simulating the dynamic behaviors of building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems has gained popularity

Development of a Bias Compensating Q-Learning Controller for a Multi-Zone HVAC Facility

August 1, 2023

Author(s)

Syed Ali Asad Rizvi, Amanda Pertzborn

We present the development of a bias compensating reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that optimizes thermal comfort (by minimizing tracking error) and

Software

Tools and Instruments

Virtual Cybernetic Building Testbed

The NIST Virtual Cybernetic Building Testbed (VCBT) is a whole building emulator designed with enough flexibility to be capable of reproducibly simulating

Building control systems

News and Updates

NIST Industrial Wireless Team Publishes Research Report on Wireless Deployment Challenges in Construction – A 5G Strategy

University, NIST Researchers Create Residential Building Models to Evaluate Fairness of Electricity Tariffs

University, NIST Researchers Develop Strategy for Cutting Home HVAC Electricity Costs

Projects and Programs

Commissioning Building Systems for Improved Performance and Cybersecurity

Embedded Intelligence in Buildings Program

Fault Detection and Diagnostics for Air-Conditioners and Heat Pumps

Intelligent Building Agents

Publications

Advanced Co-simulation Framework for Assessing the Interplay between Occupant Behaviors and Demand Flexibility in Commercial Buildings

Development of a Simulation Tool for the Intelligent Building Agents Project

A framework for calibrating and validating an air loop dynamic model in an HVAC system in Modelica

Development of a Bias Compensating Q-Learning Controller for a Multi-Zone HVAC Facility

Software

HVAC-Cx Building HVAC Systems Commissioning Tool

The NIST Data Alignment Tool

HVAC SIMulation PLUS other systems (HVACSIM+)

Tools and Instruments

Virtual Cybernetic Building Testbed