This research report was produced for the CDAIT IoT Research Working Group, based on research conducted by Georgia Tech College of Design researchers under the supervision of Dr. Pardis Pishdad-Bozorgi of the School of Building Construction and Dr. Dennis Shelden, director of the Digital Building Laboratory (DBL). The report provides a brief review of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and IoT-Enabled Smart City Frameworks as well as Building Information Modeling (BIM). It then delves into building data standards and protocols and advances foundational elements for a data acquisition framework for the smart built environment such as smart buildings, smart communities and smart cities.
This research systematically investigates how to achieve data interoperability between building systems and the Internet of Things (IoT). Even though the built environment is a critical component of the IoT paradigm, it is frequently overlooked. One major reason is that building systems lack inter-system connectivity or exposure to the larger networks of IoT devices. With the networks of sophisticated sensors and devices, building systems have the potential to serve as the infrastructure that provides essential data for IoT, and as the actuators that execute intelligent controls. Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers a clear potential as the “digital twin” of the built environment – one that can provide significantly enhanced spatial context for distributed IoT systems. A strategy for connecting emerging IoT data standards with the relatively mature building information standards can a) potentially advance a more consolidated approach to aspects of IoT device geo-positioning and metadata tagging, b) provide a critical layer of spatial semantics to IoT systems and c) enrich intelligent building efforts while harmonizing these data sources with emerging IoT protocols.