Development of intelligence analytic models for integrated building management systems (IBMS) in intelligent buildings

Abstract

With the availability of innumerable ‘intelligent’ building products and the dearth of inclusive evaluation tools, design teams are confronted with the quandary of choosing the apposite building control systems to suit the needs of a particular intelligent building project. The paucity of measures that represent the degree of system intelligence and indicate the desirable goal in intelligent building control systems design inhibits the consumers from comparing numerous products from the viewpoint of intelligence. This article is designed to develop a model for facilitating the system intelligence analysis for the integrated building management system (IBMS) in the intelligent building. To achieve these objectives, systematic research activities are conducted to first develop, test and refine the general conceptual model using consecutive surveys; then, to convert the developed conceptual framework to the practical model; and, finally, to evaluate the effectiveness of the practical model by means of expert validation. The findings of this study suggest that IBMS has a distinctive set of intelligence attributes and indicators. The research findings also indicate that operational benefits of the intelligent building exert a considerable degree of influence on the relative importance of intelligence indicators of the IBMS in the model. This research suggests a benchmark to measure the degree of intelligence of one control system candidate against another