Proceedings of the 2007 American Control Conference
2
Marriott Marquis Hotel at Times Square
New York City, USA, July 11-13, 2007
Intelligent Building Systems – Past, Present, and Future
James E. Braun
Abstract—This paper provides a vision for intelligent
HVAC&R equipment that after many years of unfulfilled
promise seems closer to reality. The paper describes some
enabling technologies and incentives that are driving the
development of embedded intelligence for HVAC&R
equipment and then provides examples of some specific
developments of intelligent servicing and control algorithms.
I. INTRODUCTION
I magine appliances and HVAC&R equipment that self-
diagnose problems and automatically provide information
to service providers so that parts can be ordered and service
scheduled. Imagine various building systems that can
automatically coordinate themselves to optimize energy
efficiency and limit energy demand in response to utility
rates and incentives, weather forecasts, and warnings/alerts.
Imagine devices that provide adaptable interfaces for elderly
with limited hearing and also make information available
throughout the building and remotely accessible from a
variety of interfaces, such as a personal computer, PDA
(personal data assistant), television, or display on any other
appliance (Figure 1).
Fig. 1. Selected Components of Intelligent Buildings
The notion of intelligent buildings received a lot of press
in the 1980’s after the advent of computerized control for
buildings and yet reality has fallen well short of this vision.
In fact, energy management and control systems (EMCS) for
buildings have been underutilized except for very large
Manuscript received September 22, 2006.
James E. Braun is a professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47909 USA (phone: 765-494-9157;
fax: 765-494-0787; e-mail: jbraun@ purdue.edu)
. to-benefit ratio and widespread application of computerized
1-4244-0989-6/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE.
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facilities. Only about 10% of the 4,650,000 commercial
buildings in the U.S. have an EMCS (EIA, 1999). Figure 2
shows that the probability of having an EMCS increases
dramatically with building size. Overall, EMCS serve about
33% of the approximately 67 billion ft2 of commercial floor
space. However, this statistic exaggerates the impacts that
EMCS have had on buildings. Surveys of building
operators suggest that only a fraction of possible EMCS
functionality is utilized leading to higher operating costs
than would have been expected for use of these systems
(Gordon and Haasl, 1996; Lowry, 2002).
Fig. 2. EMCS Installations According to Building Size
(from EIA 1999)
The good news is that the number of EMCS installations
increased by 80% between 1995 and 1999 (EIA, 1995 and
1999), with much of the gains occurring in small to medium
sized commercial buildings (10,000 to 200,000 square feet).
The controls companies appear to be providing more and
better products geared towards smaller commercial
buildings at lower costs (BCS, 2002). Costs are coming
down for a variety of reasons, including greater competition
resulting from open protocols and the evolution of
distributed systems, lower cost computing, and easier-to-use
software configuration tools. In addition, facility
management and energy service companies are expanding
and utilizing EMCS to manage and quantify building
performance.
As a result of these changes, the cost-to-benefit ratio has
improved significantly for application of computerized
control systems for buildings. Furthermore, additional
developments are underway and anticipated that will
ultimately lead to even more dramatic reductions in the cost-
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system control, including the residential market.
The key to realizing the potential for computerized
control in buildings has been to reduce installed costs. Early
EMCS were very centralized and had exceedingly high
wiring and software programming costs. In order to reduce
these costs, there has been a transition from a “centralized”
to “distributed” control architecture over the past twenty
years. The next great opportunity to reduce installation
costs and realize the vision of intelligent buildings is to
embed intelligence directly in manufactured building
equipment and components with the ability to communicate
information with standard protocols that can be used for
intelligent system operations (control, maintenance, and
service). It does not seem far fetched to envision smart
equipment and appliances having integrated chips that are
embedded with documentation, models, and algorithms that
could enable coordination with other devices, condition
monitoring, and automated diagnostics. Embedded
intelligence could ultimately be integrated within most
components found in buildings, including individual lights,
sensors, compressors, valves, heat exchangers, pumps,
refrigerators, and dishwashers. Service providers could
provide free diagnoses and cost estimates for appliance
repairs remotely. Appliances could be designed to be grid
friendly so that they respond to utility control or price
signals and coordinate themselves to limit electrical demand
during periods of critical demand. Ultimately, the use of
embedded intelligence and high-level protocols could enable
“plug-and-play” system controls and monitoring that would
dramatically reduce the costs associated with configuring the
software necessary to reap the great cost savings potential
for computerized operations of buildings.
This paper describes some of the enabling technologies
and incentives (see Roth et al., 2005) that are driving the
development of embedded intelligence for building systems
and then provides examples of some specific developments
of intelligent servicing and control algorithms.
II. ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES AND INCENTIVES
The cost-to-benefit ratio for implementation of embedded
intelligence within building equipment has been decreasing
in the past decade for a variety of reasons. Costs are
decreasing because of reductions in hardware, installation,
and infrastructure costs. The benefits are increasing as
utilities offer new incentives to reduce peak demand and
energy usage and as the overall cost of energy increases.
A. Lower Cost Sensing and Processing
Costs, size, and power requirements for processors,
sensors, and networking have dropped dramatically over the
last decade. Small-scale, low-cost devices are now available
that integrate a CPU with a sensor and network
communication (Figure 3). This is pushing processing
closer to the sources of data and opens up many possibilities
for embedded intelligence.
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Fig. 3. Integration of Sensing, Communication, and Computation
For instance, a compressor might have an integrated chip
that contains a performance map and has sensor inputs for
suction and discharge conditions that allow use of the map
to determine refrigerant mass flow rate and compressor
power consumption. These “virtual sensors” would provide
the same information provided by expensive mass flow and
power meters at a fraction of the cost and could be used for
a variety of purposes, including continuous performance
monitoring of equipment EER, inputs to a diagnostic
system, inputs to a building-wide demand-limiting
algorithm, etc. Similarly, a condenser could have a chip
with a model used along with measurements of state
variables and a virtual refrigerant mass flow measurement to
provide a virtual sensor for condenser air flow. Condenser
air flow could then be used as a diagnostic indicator for
fouling or fan problems. Embedded intelligence will allow a
proliferation of low-cost information for monitoring,
diagnostics, and improved control.
The application of MEMS technology to HVAC&R
sensors could also have a dramatic effect on the costs of
embedding sensors and intelligence in HVAC&R equipment
(Yashar and Domanski, 2004). MEMS technologies involve
manufacture of many solid-state sensors on a single
semiconductor wafer, which reduces cost. MEMS sensors
are low cost when manufactured in large volumes, small and
lightweight, and can have good accuracy and resistance to
long term drift (Figure 4).
Fig. 4. Spider Mite on a MEMS Device (Sandia National Labs)
They are widely used in the automotive industry due to
the large volumes employed. However, for adaptation to
HVAC&R applications, MEMS sensors need to provide data
output in formats commonly used by HVAC&R controllers
(e.g., 4-20ma). In order to realize price benefits from
economies of scale, the HVAC&R sensors market would
need to have greater standardization in sensor components

and sufficient buyer demand to drive up production
volumes. This increased demand would be a logical
outgrowth of a general trend towards HVAC&R equipment
manufacturers’ embedding intelligence in their products.
B. Lower Installation Costs
The costs of field installation for monitoring and control
systems are a major part of total system costs and are due to
wiring of individual components, sensor installation, and
software implementation. Although control and monitoring
companies have expended considerable resources to reduce
these costs, several developments are taking place that will
provide significant additional cost savings.
In order to reduce wiring costs, control and monitoring
systems have migrated towards highly distributed
architectures that rely on low-level controllers that are
networked together. This architecture tends to minimize
lengths of individual wires between processors and
individual sensors and actuators (Figure 5). This trend will
continue as processors get integrated at even lower levels
within sensors and actuators and directly connected to a
local network. Fully distributed networked solutions
significantly reduce lengths of wiring compared to more
centralized processing solutions. This will most likely
involve a hierarchical structure for networking with lower
cost networking employed at lower levels (e.g., within
individual air conditioner units) where information
transmission requirements are less than at higher levels (e.g.,
between all building controllers and monitoring devices).
Fig. 5. Transition from Centralized to Distributed Network
Architectures
Two other approaches for reducing the costs associated
with wiring have received considerable attention in recent
years: power-line carrier (PLC) and wireless. PLC uses
existing power lines within a building to transmit digital
information. Digital signals are encoded and transmitted at
a much higher frequency than the electric power signal.
Although this would appear to be a very attractive approach
from a cost perspective, electrical noise from other devices
connected to the electrical distribution network can cause
significant problems (Knisley, 2003) and to date, PLC has
primarily been used for lighting control in residential
markets. It is not expected that PLC will play a major role
in building control and monitoring applications (BCS,
2002).
There are a variety of wireless approaches that could
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ultimately be widely applied for monitoring and control in
buildings because of reduced installation costs. In
particular, wireless solutions make the most sense for retrofit
applications where adding wiring is much more labor
intensive and expensive than for new structures. Recently,
the building controls companies have been offering wireless
temperature sensors products.
One of most compelling applications for wireless
temperature sensors is for zone temperature thermostats.
Wireless technology should allow larger flexibility in the
placement of thermostats leading to improved comfort
conditions. Ultimately, individual occupants could have
their own zone temperature sensors that communicate with a
control system that attempts to optimize thermal conditions
for occupants. Furthermore, battery powered sensors can
adjust transmission rates according to the rate at which the
measurements are changing to conserve battery life.
For small-scale retrofits, wireless can be implemented
with simple point-to-point wireless schemes (Kele, 2004) for
wire replacement. These technologies have existed for
commercial buildings for a few two years (Turpin, 2004).
Wireless systems compatible with BACNet are also
available (Wang and Nova, 2004, Kiyon, 2004). For larger
scale applications, wireless mesh networks that are
interconnected, self-enabling and self-healing (Kintner-
Meyer and Conant, 2004) could be employed. In mesh
networks, individual nodes (Figure 6) can serve as
transmitters, receivers, and routers that relay messages
(CABA, 2004; Turpin, 2004). Mesh networks are beginning
to be deployed for a variety of applications, including for
agricultural monitoring using moisture and temperature
sensors (Delin, 2004; Electronic News, 2004) and for
industrial settings (Marshall, 2003). Controls companies
and wireless mesh network providers are entering into
business relationships for commercial buildings (Turpin,
2004) and companies have begun to offer building-wide
wireless solutions.
Fig. 6. Wireless Sensor Node (www.sensorsmag.com, Riedel
(March 2004))
The costs of many wireless solutions are coming down
and recent studies have demonstrated that they are currently
cost effective in many situations (Kintner-Meyer and
Brambley, 2002; Katipamula and Brambley, 2004)
depending on the number of sensors and wireless
components employed. The economics of wireless systems
improve as the number of sensors increases due to a tradeoff

between higher fixed costs for wireless systems and higher
installation costs for wired systems. Wireless system costs
are expected to decrease at a significant rate over the next
few years (Kintner-Meyer and Brambley, 2002; Kintner-
Meyer and Conant, 2004) meaning that wireless solutions
will undoubtedly have a major impact on building
applications in the near future.
In addition to wiring, installation of sensors in the field is
time consuming and prone to errors. These difficulties and
costs would be reduced if more sensors were embedded in
equipment at the factory and could communicate through
standard protocols with other devices. The incentives for
factory-installed sensors will improve as low-cost MEMS
sensors are developed for building applications and the cost
effectiveness of embedding sensors and intelligence in
equipment is improved.
Systems that provide facility wide monitoring and control
require a significant amount of software implementation and
configuration. Control companies have invested heavily in
developing software configuration tools that reduce these
programming costs. The tools have graphical interfaces
with standardized control and monitoring solutions for
different types of equipment. However, this process is still
time consuming, costly, and prone to errors. Also, re-
programming of the system is required whenever changes to
the HVAC&R or other building systems occur. As a result,
computerized control and monitoring systems are typically
underutilized except for larger commercial applications
where a support staff takes advantage of continuous system
monitoring and can manage software reprogramming and
upgrades that are necessary. Additional cost reductions and
flexibility should be possible by embedding intelligence
within equipment leading to wider application of system-
wide control and monitoring. Ultimately, the availability of
embedded intelligence will facilitate the development of
“plug-and-play” controllers that automatically configure
themselves to provide coordination between different
devices for operation cost minimization and provide
performance and diagnostic information for system-wide
monitoring and diagnostics.
C. Communications Infrastructure
The number of providers for control systems used in
building applications has increased dramatically from the
1980’s when three companies dominated the marketplace for
buildings. This trend has been facilitated by the move
towards distributed control systems that utilize an array of
small-scale, application-specific controllers and the
development of standard communication protocols, both of
which lowered the barriers to entry in the marketplace. The
increased competition for hardware and services has
undoubtedly led to lower costs and more installations.
There are many exciting developments in communication
protocols for building applications that could have even
greater effects on costs and product offerings in the next few
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years.
A communication protocol is a common language that
allows devices to share essential information for effective
control and performance monitoring. In the 1990’s, several
open communications protocols came to market for building
controls, with BACNet and LonTalk receiving the most
attention in the U.S. LonWorks products appear to have
gained greater market share for equipment control and
stand-alone controllers than BACNet (DeNamur, 2002).
However, BACNet may represent the best option for
system-wide monitoring and control (Kranz and Gisler,
2002) because it offers greater top-level functionality and
interoperability with enterprise networks (i.e., with Ethernet
and IP).
The use of existing enterprise networks could
significantly reduce the installed cost of system-wide
monitoring and controls and allow remote access and control
from any device with Internet access (PC, hand-held device,
cell phone) and appropriate access permission. Ultimately,
web-based browsers could allow occupants to take control
of local building environments. To a limited extent, this has
already started to occur (Tom, 2005). The seamless sharing
and transfer of information via IP (or other protocols) can
also substantially increase the efficiency of building
management. For example, a study of U.S. capital facilities
estimates that seamless interoperability reduces operations
and maintenance costs by $0.23/ft2.
Communications protocols have been modified to
incorporate specifications to communicate over IP networks.
For example, ASHRAE has published an addition to the
BACNet standard known as “BACNet/IP” that specifies
how BACNet devices can directly communicate over IP-
based networks. Major controls manufacturers now offer
“BACNetTM/IP” workstations and controllers. Ultimately,
building controls may communicate entirely in IP-based
protocols, bypassing the need for other protocols. Web-
based building control systems that use eXtensible Markup
Language (XML), a data format for sharing device-specific
information over enterprise networks, are under
development and at least two manufacturers have launched
native XML building control products.
Another development that could reduce software
configuration costs and facilitate commissioning would be
the extension of Universal Plug ‘n Play (UPnP) to
commercial building control applications and devices. UPnP
is an open technology that allows IP-based communication
between UPnP-enabled devices on a network that supports
IP. It incorporates a discovery function that largely
automates the incorporation of new UPnP devices into the
network. When a new device is added to the network, it
“advertises” its presence to the other UPnP-enabled devices.
The devices exchange information about their functionality
(in XML format), which then enables devices to share
information or allow one device to control another device.
Power over Ethernet (PoE) is another promising

application of enterprise network technology to buildings
that could significantly impact costs. PoE can provide up to
13W of power over Ethernet cabling to devices up to 100m
from an Ethernet hub or port (Thomas, 2005). PoE
consolidates separate communications and power wiring
into one connection, reducing the cost of installing a wired
device. In buildings, for example, it could potentially power
and provide information to and from sensors and some
controllers.
Widespread use of the internet has created a greater
expectation among customers for accessibility to
information for use in decision making. It is likely that the
marketplace will reward hardware and software providers in
the HVAC&R arena who respond to these expectations.
D. Consolidation within the Facility Operations Industry
The structure of the industry that provides controls and
services for the operation and maintenance of buildings has
changed dramatically in the past 20 years. In the 1980’s,
only a handful of companies provided computerized control
systems for buildings. The control systems tended to be
centralized with a single vendor providing all of the
necessary hardware and software. As control systems have
become more distributed and compatible with standard
communication protocols, lower-level control hardware with
integrated applications software have become more or less
commodities that can be provided by any number of
competing companies based upon first cost and specific
features. In this environment, the large control companies
have significantly expanded and broadened their service
offerings to provide complete facility management and
maintenance. In fact, sales of controls hardware are only a
relatively small part of the income of the large control
companies that serve the buildings’ market. Other
companies have entered and/or expanded in this growing
market segment to provide different aspects of facilities
management. The cost-to-benefit ratio for intelligent
operations improves as the industry moves towards large
organizations managing the operations and maintenance of
many buildings. In particular, the cost of developing and
managing the necessary software tools can be spread out
over a larger revenue base.
In addition, large companies that provide HVAC&R
equipment and service have purchased controls companies
and recently a large controls and facility management
company purchased an HVAC&R equipment manufacturer.
Companies that provide HVAC&R equipment, controls,
operations, and service can embed equipment-specific
intelligence within their products at a lower cost which helps
them in selling packages to customers for facility operations,
maintenance, and service.
E. Greater Incentives for Intelligent Features
The use of embedded intelligence within HVAC&R and
other equipment can lead to reduced utility costs, reduced
costs for providing operations, maintenance, and service,
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and improved occupant comfort and satisfaction. Utility
costs are a relatively small percentage of facility operating
costs and have been relatively stable over the past 20 years.
However, energy costs have begun to rise recently in
response to dramatically increased world-wide demand.
Higher energy costs provide a greater incentive for
intelligent features that lead to more efficient operations.
In many locations, increased electrical demand has put a
strain on utilities to meet peak requirements and in response,
they are experimenting with new utility rate structures that
rely on electronic notification in real time to influence
customers to level their electrical demand during times of
peak usage. For instance, some utilities in the U.S. are
offering real-time electric rates that more-or-less reflect the
true cost of providing electricity at any time. The rates can
increase dramatically during periods of peak demand when
less efficient generating capacity is employed and when it is
necessary purchase additional generating capacity from
other utilities. The real-time rates are transmitted
electronically some hours in advance. Some utilities in
California are also experimenting with critical peak pricing
(CPP) rate structures. With CPP, utilities can impose very
high (super-peak) rates during designated times of the day
(e.g., 12 – 6 pm) on a limited number of CPP days (e.g., 6)
throughout each year. The utilities provide an electronic
signal to the customer in advance of the CPP event. With
either real-time or CPP rates, intelligent controls have the
potential to automatically respond to these dynamic price
signals and reduce overall costs.
There also is a trend in the U.S. of utilities offering
incentive programs to commercial customers to provide
“tune-ups” for packaged HVAC&R equipment. Programs
have been developed on both the east and west coasts that
rely on diagnostic tools for diagnosing problems and
evaluating performance before and after service. This is part
of a growing concern about the degradation in performance
of packaged equipment that occurs in the field due to
inadequate service. There are indications that the U.S.
government may eventually mandate minimum performance
requirements for in-situ performance of HVAC&R
equipment. This type of requirement would provide a
tremendous boon for embedded tools that provide
continuous feedback on equipment performance and
developing faults.
III. AUTOMATED DIAGNOSTICS
One of the most significant near-term opportunities for
embedded intelligence in HVAC&R equipment is automated
diagnostics and service scheduling. This technology
involves the use of sensors and information technology to
monitor the health of equipment, diagnose problems, and
recommend service. Diagnostic systems have been applied
for many years to critical systems, such as nuclear power
plants and air craft. However, their development and
application for HVAC&R has been much slower because the

industry is extremely cost sensitive and the benefits are more
difficult to quantify and don’t generally include human
safety. As a result, research and development efforts for
HVAC&R applications have focused on low-cost solutions.
Embedded diagnostics for packaged air conditioning
equipment is an application of tremendous potential that is
near commercialization. Figure 7 depicts a vision for
embedded diagnostic systems that is currently under
development for rooftop air conditioners. Low cost sensors,
data monitoring, and equipment safety algorithms are
embedded within individual equipment. In the system under
development, individual devices on each rooftop unit
communicate through a wireless network on the roof to a
local server that provides the primary diagnostic capabilities
and can communicate with a centralized server through an
internet or cell phone connection. The central server
provides web-based reporting and is accessible by
authorized personnel across the Internet. This architecture
tends to minimize costs for hardware and installation at the
lowest level associated with individual pieces of equipment.
The use of low-cost wireless communications on the roof
significantly reduces installation costs. In this initial
implementation, the higher cost elements, such as the local
Shopping Mall
Transmit data
Micro-
a/c
controller
a/c Store C
B
Transducers a/c
A
Thermo / Mechanical
Equipment
A/C Unit
Benefits
Central
• improved comfort
• lower energy costs
Processing
Facility
• lower maintenance costs
Fig. 7. Vision for a fully automated diagnostic system
server and external communications, are shared leading to
lower costs per unit than if their functions were integrated.
For sites with a small number of units, the local server and
wireless network could be eliminated and data and
diagnoses could be accessed using a hand-tool interface to
individual units carried by a service technician.
The primary benefits of automated fault detection and
diagnostic systems for HVAC&R equipment are reduced
downtime, service costs, and utility costs. The use of an
embedded diagnostic system will allow a relatively small
support staff in a central location to monitor and manage
service for a large number of HVAC&R units and buildings
in a more cost effective manner than is currently possible.
Although computer control and monitoring systems are
employed in large commercial buildings, they do not yet
include many diagnostic capabilities. Furthermore, small to
medium size commercial buildings do not typically employ
monitoring systems and yet they may incorporate a number
of packaged air conditioners.
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Packaged air conditioning equipment accounts for
approximately 60% of the installed cooling capacity within
the U.S and yet they generally are not well maintained with
current practices (Breuker and Braun, 1998; Jacobs, 2003;
Rossi, 2004; Li and Braun, 2007a). In a best case scenario,
a customer enters into a maintenance contract that involves
regular inspections and preventative maintenance. With
skilled technicians, this can result in equipment that
performs efficiently with minimal down time. However, the
contracts are relatively expensive and the customer has no
direct feedback on the benefits of service that is performed.
An embedded system would eliminate the need for
expensive on-site inspections and provide continual
feedback to customers on the condition of their equipment
and the cost effectiveness of performing service. This
would significantly reduce the costs of providing service
contracts and make the service contractor more accountable
to the customer, fostering a better relationship between the
two. In the current environment, service tends to be
performed in response to comfort complaints when
equipment is either not operating or when the cooling
capacity has degraded to a point where space conditions
cannot be maintained. This leads to poor equipment energy
efficiency and reduced equipment life.
Most of the diagnostic method development for packaged
a/c
air conditioners has been driven by the goal of keeping
Store D
installed costs low and has focused on faults that degrade
system cooling capacity and efficiency and impact the life of
Building 1 equipment (e.g., heat exchanger or filter fouling, high or low
air flow, evaporator frosting, liquid line restrictions,
Transmit data
Building 2 refrigerant leakage, loss of compressor performance,
presence of non-condensable gases, etc.). Most methods use
Building 3 relatively low-cost temperature and pressure measurements
and use differences between measurements and expectations
of thermodynamic states at steady state conditions for
detection and diagnoses of faults. The expected values for
thermodynamic states under normal operation depend upon
ambient and room conditions and the diagnostic methods
generally incorporate simple models for normal states that
are specific to the particular unit (see Braun, 2003a).
Diagnostic methods that are based on changes in
thermodynamic states do not handle multiple faults
occurring simultaneously because all the state variables
change in response to the development of any fault. In
addition, these methods require measurements over a wide
range of conditions to train reference models for each of the
thermodynamic state variables. In order to handle multi-
simultaneous faults and keep costs low, decoupling features
can be incorporated that are uniquely dependent on
individual faults and that use ‘virtual sensors’ (see Li and
Braun, 2007b,c,d). Virtual sensors estimate system
parameters using mathematical models in conjunction with
physical sensors. Therefore, they rely on low cost
measurements and models to estimate quantities necessary in
determining the decoupling features. For instance, a virtual
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sensor was developed for refrigerant charge that can be used
to diagnose low or high refrigerant charge and only requires
measurements of four temperatures.
Diagnostic systems should incorporate indices that
measure equipment performance degradations in order to
assess fault severity and evaluate whether service should be
performed. Several investigators (see Braun, 2003a) have
used coefficient of performance (COP) as an economic
index and cooling capacity degradation as a comfort index
for evaluating fault severity. More recently, Li and Braun
(2007e) developed an economic performance degradation
index (EPDI) that is determined from low-cost
measurements and includes the effects of energy efficiency
and equipment life.
IV. INTELLIGENT CONTROLS
There has been a significant amount of research and
development related to intelligent control strategies that
attempt to minimize utility costs for large commercial
HVAC&R systems. Chapter 41 of the ASHRAE Handbook
of HVAC Applications (ASHRAE, 2003) presents a number
of different strategies for systems used in commercial
buildings along with results that demonstrate the cost
savings potential. For the most part, these strategies are
geared towards large commercial systems that incorporate
chilled water distribution. Most of the strategies require
performance information for more than one piece of
equipment in order to consider tradeoffs in energy usage.
For instance, the strategy in the ASHRAE Handbook for
control of cooling towers requires information on tower fan
power requirements and the sensitivity of chiller power to
changes in condenser water temperature. Similarly, a
strategy for optimal sequencing of multiple chillers requires
part-load information for the individual chillers. In order to
implement these strategies, a control engineer needs to
collect equipment performance information and configure
controllers where the algorithms have been implemented. If
the configuration of the plant changed, then the controllers
would need to be reconfigured. Unfortunately, these
requirements have been a barrier to widespread application
of these control strategies.
The availability of embedded intelligence in individual
HVAC&R equipment could have a tremendous impact on
the cost of implementing intelligent control strategies
leading to much wider application. For instance, a cooling
tower fan controller could have access to embedded
performance information from each tower fan and each
chiller across the local network. Similarly, a chiller
sequencing controller could obtain part-load information
from individual chillers. The use of embedded intelligence
would substantially reduce the human effort required to
configure or reconfigure these controllers and also lead to
better performance. For large commercial cooling systems,
the existence of intelligent control algorithms means that
there are many near-term opportunities for reducing
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operating costs that would be enabled through availability of
embedded equipment intelligence.
There has been relatively little development of intelligent
control strategies for small commercial buildings that utilize
packaged air conditioning equipment because these
applications generally do not have computerized control
systems. However, there are significant opportunities for
cost savings in small buildings that could be realized at low
installed costs through intelligent HVAC&R equipment.
One of the most exciting opportunities is the development of
a smart thermostat. A smart thermostat would be a
replacement for existing thermostats used to control
individual packaged air conditioners. The thermostat would
attempt to minimize operating costs for air conditioning by
adjusting zone temperature setpoints over time within the
comfort range to respond to time-varying electrical energy
and demand rates and ambient conditions. It would need to
have access to utility rates and equipment performance
characteristics. The building load dynamics would need to
be learned through adaptation of a simple dynamic model
that could relate thermostat calls for cooling with occupancy
schedules and weather conditions. A smart thermostat might
also incorporate an occupancy sensor. In addition to being
useful as an input to an adaptive model for building load
dynamics, the smart thermostat could communicate with
intelligent lighting controllers to reduce local lighting levels
when appropriate. Although there is a significant
development effort required for smart thermostats, the
economic benefits are substantial (see Braun , 2003b).
V. CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK
The incentives and opportunities for intelligent HVAC&R
equipment have never been greater. However, the industry
has been relatively slow to adopt new technologies and the
pace is unlikely to increase substantially unless driven by
customer expectations and/or significant cost reduction
opportunities. Customer expectations for intelligent features
are certainly increasing due to explosion of smart consumer
electronics. However, there is a need to develop more
documentation of the benefits and cost savings potential for
intelligent HVAC&R equipment. This information is
needed by developers in the design of cost effective systems
and also by marketers who will need to promote this
technology.
The most likely first implementation of embedded
intelligence for HVAC&R equipment and appliances will be
for documentation. A chip integrated in the factory could
contain detailed information necessary for installation,
commissioning, operation, maintenance, warranty, and
repair and be accessible from a local computer or handheld
device through a USB and/or wireless connection. For
medium to larger commercial buildings, this information
could be accessible across a local network provided for
system control and monitoring. Embedded documentation
could dramatically reduce the chances of losing this

information and improve the prospects for proper
installation and operation.
Performance monitoring and diagnostics will begin to be
integrated within HVAC&R equipment used in commercial
buildings within the next five years. In the near term for
small commercial buildings, this capability will allow a
service technician or owner to monitor and manage service
using a handheld or local computer with a USB and/or
wireless connection. As customer confidence and
expectations for better economic performance grow, there
could be a dramatic expansion of contracts with service
providers who manage maintenance and repair using remote
monitoring connected across a network to intelligent
HVAC&R equipment. For commercial HVAC&R
applications, diagnostic capabilities should ultimately be
embedded in nearly all controllers that are packaged with the
devices that they control. This includes chillers, rooftop
units, air handling units, VAV boxes, etc.
The outlook for widespread application of intelligent
control of HVAC&R equipment for minimum utility costs is
not as optimistic. In order to properly consider tradeoffs in
performance for intelligent control, it is necessary to have
specific knowledge of equipment performance. Although it
is clearly possible to integrate the necessary information
within chips on individual equipment, equipment
manufacturers are unlikely to do so without a mandate from
the government or a recognized standard. A standard could
provide an opportunity for smaller players to gain a
competitive advantage which could ultimately compel the
larger players into compliance. This is essentially what
happened in the development of and compliance with the
BACNet communications protocol. Perhaps the BACNet
protocol could eventually be amended to include equipment
performance characteristics necessary for implementation of
intelligent control strategies.
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