Our White Papers summarize the position statements of Contemporary Controls regarding a particular technology.

 

   Connecting BACnet Devices to an IP Infrastructure

Few people understood what the Internet Protocol (IP) was before the Internet became wildly popular. IP is the heart of the Internet, and for Building Automation Systems (BAS), IP is becoming increasingly important. That was not the case in the last decade of BACnet development in which several data link technologies were included — including Ethernet. But Ethernet is not IP, although it works well with IP networks. The BACnet community recognized the need for a convenient method of attaching to IP networks in a meaningful way with the release of BACnet/IP, but many legacy BACnet devices exist and non-IP BACnet devices continue to be produced everyday. This paper reveals how all BACnet devices can effectively share a common IP network — thereby enhancing the power and convenience of BACnet.

   Ethernet, ARCNET, CAN: Proposed Network Hierarchy for Open Control

It has been shown that Ethernet, ARCNET and CAN will provide the necessary networking capability needed at the Information, Control and Device levels, respectively. There has been a lot of discussion of using Ethernet at the Control and Device levels due to its "simplicity" and its perceived low cost. Although Ethernet can perform at these levels, ARCNET and CAN are better suited to the Control and Device levels. As these low costs, Ethernet and CAN provide a much simpler setup process.