Independent testing for conformance to BACnet[R] begins. (News Briefs).For many years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time building industry struggled with the problem of integrating control devices made by different manufacturers in order to optimize operations, improve safety, and reduce maintenance costs. NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology, Washington, DC, www.nist.gov) The standards-defining agency of the U.S. government, formerly the National Bureau of Standards. It is one of three agencies that fall under the Technology Administration (www.technology. researchers worked with industry to develop a communication protocol standard for building automation and control systems known as BACnet[R] that was adopted in the mid-1990s. A marketplace barrier to BACnet products has been the lack of an independent testing program to verify that products correctly implement the standard. Consequently, NIST created a BACnet Interoperability The capability of two or more hardware devices or two or more software routines to work harmoniously together. For example, in an Ethernet network, display adapters, hubs, switches and routers from different vendors must conform to the Ethernet standard and interoperate with each other. Testing Consortium with 22 private sector companies. NIST researchers and the consortium partners worked together to develop test procedures that are now incorporated in a draft American national standard (standard) American National Standard - (ANS) A common prefix for ANSI documents or standards, e.g.: "ANS Forth", or "American National Standard X3.215-1994". . NIST also developed software tools that can be used to implement the BACnet tests. The results of these efforts have now resulted in the creation of the BACnet Manufacturers Association (BMA BMA British Medical Association. ), a private sector BACnet Testing Laboratory (BTL BTL Between the Lines BTL Battle BTL Bottle BTL Buy To Let BTL Below The Line (advertising) BTL Biomass-to-Liquids BTL Bubba the Love Sponge BTL Between the Lions (PBS children's TV show) ), and the completion of the first set of tests on commercial products. The BMA will issue a BTL mark and publish a list of products that have passed the tests. The goal is for the BTL mark and listing program to play a role in the building automation and control industry much like the more well know Underwriters Laboratory mark and listing program for product safety. CONTACT: Steven Bushby, (301) 975-5873; steven.bushby@nist.gov. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion