BACnet Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement

To help the customer in determining the compliance level of a device, a vendor must supply a PICS statement of compliance. The basic format of the statement is provided in the standard and this was the format used for the BAS Remote. For the BAS Remote, its PICS shown in Table 5 indicates that it complies with the B-ASC standard device profile with no additional BIBBs supported. The actual BIBBs are listed. The data link layer supported is also listed as BACnet/IP, (Annex J). A vendor is not required to use a format identical to that of Table 5, but the relevant information must be provided. Although the vendor has stated his product’s compliance with a PICS statement, how does a user know that the product actually complies? The ideal approach is for the vendor to submit the product to the BTL Laboratories for compliance testing. These labs were formed by BACnet International, a trade association devoted to advancing the BACnet standard around the world.

Table 5 — PICS Statement for the BAS Remote

BACnet International

According to its website at http://www.bacnetassocation.org, BACnet International (BI) is an organization that encourages the successful use of BACnet in building automation and control systems through interoperability testing, educational programs, and promotional activities. Membership is open to both companies and individuals interested in the BACnet standard. There are two key activities BI sponsors in its mission to encourage successful installations. BI organizes annual "Plugfests" where vendors can bring their products to an event in order to verify that their devices interoperate. The other initiative is the creation of the BACnet Testing Laboratories (BTL) where products can bear the BTL mark upon successful completion of conformance testing.

Plugfests

Plugfests are a convenient way for vendors to test-drive their products before actually incurring the expense and effort of a formal conformance test. Usually run once a year, the Plugfest is open to any BACnet device manufacturer, but BI members can attend for free. The trade press is not invited, and results are not tabulated. It is an opportunity for vendors to freely discuss the intricacies of the BACnet protocol and to verify that their products can communicate among compliant equipment as required by the standard. It is expected that there could be some glitches occurring during testing and experts are at hand to clarify the requirements of the standard. This is all being done to improve the interoperability between competing products.

One BI member offers to be the host for the annual event and assumes responsibility for securing space for the event. To make it quick and easy to setup, communication among vendors should be BACnet/Ethernet although other data links can be tested. This requires that routers be used to support the various data links. To avoid conflicting BACnet Device IDs, each vendor is assigned a range of 1000 IDs based upon their ASHRAE-assigned vendor ID. Each vendor needs to provide a printed document listing a product’s BACnet objects that the vendor intends to test. For each object, the object ID, object name and any optional properties must be listed. Each vendor has to provide an Ethernet 10BASE-T connection along with an Ethernet repeating hub and some sort of protocol analyzer for observing the data being sent and received. Repeating hubs facilitate the use of protocol analyzers since all traffic can be observed on all hub ports. Software changes could be made during breaks if the vendor brings along a full development system. This is the one chance during the year to do some real interoperability testing, so it is best to come prepared.