Namur - Process related Building Automation

Standardization of TGA components of process-related building automation in the Industry 4.0 environment, taking into account Process control, Simulation and Plant Asset Management
The overall objective of this research project is the standardization of industrially widespread plant types of process-related technical building equipment under the aspects of process control, plant simulation and plant asset management. The modelling basis for standardization is the fundamental concepts of the Industry 4.0 administration shell and Module Type Packages (MTP). Through the semantic and functional description of the technical building equipment systems, the research project transfers fundamental research results from Industry 4.0 / MTP into a standard that can be directly applied by users and manufacturers of process-related building automation. The work is carried out in research cooperation between the TH Köln and the member companies of the NAMUR working group 1.7 “Process-oriented building automation”. The results of the research project are published as an open VDI/VDMA standard and in a NAMUR recommendation (NE), and the software libraries developed (HMI, simulation) are made available as open source. In addition, the standardized description of MEP systems is incorporated into other standards relevant to building technology (in particular VDI 3814) and international data standards for the description of assets (buildingSMART, eCl@ss). The research project starts with the analysis of process-related technical building equipment and its main application scenarios. Their analysis results in the specification of the use cases for standardization and the focused asset types. The MTP concept and the information model of the Industry 4.0 administration shells form the basis of the virtual images of the building services equipment. These are fundamentally modeled and semantically and functionally expanded depending on the prioritization of the use cases from the process control, simulation and plant asset management scenarios. In the area of plant asset management, the semantic description of the Technical Building Engineering systems is carried out for applications in documentation, energy and maintenance management. In order to avoid multiple descriptions, international and national standards (e.g. [6,7]) for the information technology description of plant components are analyzed (priority: ISO before IEC before EN ...). Based on the specified use cases, submodels are designed that are composed of features that correspond to the IEC 61360 structure required in the Industry 4.0 environment. An initial extension of the asset administration shell is the specification of HMI types for process-related technical building equipment. The main graphical representations of the technical building equipment systems are specified with the help of AutomationML and these are assigned to the administration shells as HMI types. Other aspects of process control focus on best practices for function templates and control strategies for the Technical Building Engineering systems. An additional extension of the asset administration shell results from GMP requirements, so that process-relevant variables are specified and archived to implement product traceability. The aspect of pre-commissioning automation functionality as an element of application-oriented certification motivates the specification of digital twins of the focused Technical Building Engineering systems. These simulate their behavior and enable the programmed automation functions to be tested in HiL environments. Finally, communication technologies are analysed and prioritized with regard to their importance in the focused industrial applications (e.g. BACnet). For selected specification results, e.g. process control or plant asset management, a communication technology mapping of the asset administration shell to common communication technologies of process-related building automation is then carried out.
Project partner: NAMUR-Arbeitskreis 1.7 "Prozessnahe Gebäudeautomation" (NAMUR – working group 1.7 „process-related building automation“)
Funding provider: Bayer, BASF, Process Automation, Boehringer Ingelheim
Duration: 01.01.2021 - 31.01.2024