August Issue - Low Cost Powerful Hybrid Edge Controllers move control and data to the edge while still making both available to the cloud enabling self learning at the device and/or cloud or a hybrid of both.

My five decades in the building automation industry have made it crystal clear that we are always moving towards or away from centralization and I love this month's theme that sees us moving in both direction at the same time.  This is important because the success of our industry and all other industries is embedded in the balance of cloud, edge and self learning devices.

Very pleased to have this evolutionary article from Alper and Therese: Data Flow Will Mirror Air Flow in the Era of Hybrid Edge Controllers

It dawned on me that this is not just true for air but all building systems processes.  Chilled water, hot water, demand response, integration of renewables, etc, everything.  And that the same data may flow differently for different processes. This is part of the exciting message all self learned from haystack tagging.

You need to read this article to grasp the significance of this change; here are some quotes from article.

As Hybrid Devices enter the market, the near future will be a transition time. Two characteristics of newer controls architectures are that:
 
The on site PC supervisor is becoming a thing of the past. Now, AHU controllers are more likely communicating to a cloud-hosted BMS via secured Ethernet connections.

Customers are demanding that data be freed from walled gardens protected by proprietary protocols. More and more, controls designers can count on data interoperability from their equipment through full implementations of BACnet or other industry standards.

The biggest change yet, however, will be the introduction of Hybrid Controllers. These will have the full stack of resources needed to host applications for graphics, trending, alarming, control logic and advanced analytics. To a large part, they will eliminate the need for a conventional Global Controller. VAVs will communicate directly with their own Hybrid Controllers.

In this 2009 article Future of Building Automation from Alper,  "the future" appears to be now, comes the base of this thought;

Pure object oriented programming for Building Controls

Since every object is a real life device, programming methodologies will completely change. Every equipment manufacturer will store and build essential algorithms into their devices which will give them an edge over their competitors. For example, a VFD manufacturer will essentially create algorithms that will optimize their PID loops inside their equipment. Damper actuators will have more optimized PID loops based on their communication skills to the cloud.

More recently in March of this year, this article set the scene; Energy Analytics Controllers  Edge devices now have the intelligence and data storage they need for local analytics and machine decision-making. They’ll soon be the thing that the rest of the BAS universe revolves around. - Alper Üzmezler, BASSG LLC.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]Lots of very well read articles last month about the power of the edge for control as well a data storage and self learning.

July Top Reads
Payoffs of Meta-Data Tagging
The Device or the Cloud?
Grundfos Living Lab
Learning with Artificial Intelligence
Controls Industry Disruption.

I have provided a summary in my review: Recent History on How We Got to the Edge 

As always this issue is a nest of great articles, columns, reviews, new products, interviews and of course the steady stream of news depicting our rapidly evolution and journey to the edge, cloud, and self learning devices.

Tell all our sponsors you saw their ads on the AutomatedBuildings.com web site and thank them for supporting your free access to evolving Automated Building Industry information. Click on their ads and view their valuable products and services. Please review all Our Sponsors.

The news just keeps flowing thru our web site and RSS feeds daily, and of course the only way to truly find what you are looking for in the vast quantity of information on our site is with our site search engine http://www.automatedbuildings.com/search/sitesearch.htm

As always lots of new products, plus be sure to check our event calendar to see the number of events we have in our future.
 

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