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Robotic construction through concrete 3D printing is an in-progress revolution in construction industry. While significant progress is made on hardware related challenges, software and information related issues of such innovative system are less discussed. In this paper, a software platform is proposed for data retrieval and analysis from BIM models and utilizing it efficiently during various stages of the process. While the general idea of using BIM for automated construction has been mentioned before, the implementation details (the focus of this paper) were not previously discussed. To this aim, a framework is proposed to integrate BIM into an automated construction system. A Planning and Operations Control Software for Automated Construction (POCSAC) is developed as a major enabler for a seamless integration of BIM and Contour Crafting. The interoperation between different components of the construction system and BIM platform are designed to maximize the realized benefits through synergy of the two technologies.

The environment of an intelligent building includes systems and sensors with significant heterogeneity. With the growth of heterogeneous devices and sensor technologies in intelligent buildings, designers are often faced with more interoperation complexities among heterogeneous systems that are data-intensive in nature. Conversely, performing decision making on these systems with a variety of building data is not efficient in terms of adapting to a changing environment. Current interoperation solutions for intelligent buildings focus on dry-contact and static rule-based systems to solve interoperability in intelligent buildings. Although static rule-based systems are efficient, the bottleneck can be in the area of the scalability of heterogeneous systems that will affect the efficient performance of interoperations. Therefore, to ensure a timely decision-making mechanism among heterogeneous systems, the performance delay and interpretation capability of systems should be improved. This paper offers a framework that improves the communication responses and the ability of automated decision support among the heterogeneous systems with a rule-based repository for the management of intelligent buildings. The implementation of the framework was performed with several systems to show their adaptation to joint interoperation. It is also interwoven with Web services to offer unified integration among heterogeneous systems. Testing of the framework was performed in a local area network (LAN) setting and proved to be reliable in solving interoperation problems for intelligent buildings.

The field of intelligent building includes a variety of systems with high level of heterogeneity. Recent advancements in sensor technologies and industrial electronics have increased the growth of heterogeneous systems in building environment. Many of these heterogeneous systems are disparate and not intended to perform mutual interoperation. Hence, it is rather difficult to execute interoperation especially in achieving desired services preferred by building owners and occupants. Complexity of interoperation is one the main reason for ambiguity in interoperability among heterogeneous systems in intelligent building. In intelligent building, an unrestricted joint execution of tasks between heterogeneous systems is essential to offer services that meet the building occupants’ requirements. In this paper, we present an Event-Condition-Action (ECA) based interoperability framework for intelligent building management by providing decision support ability among heterogeneous systems. The framework is interwoven with Web Services to provide unified integration among heterogeneous systems. The framework has been implemented with several systems to demonstrate their efficiency for joint interoperation. The framework was tested in Ethernet environment and proved to be reliable in intelligent building setting.

Managing heterogeneous subsystems in an intelligent building has always been elusive due to lack of interoperability factor. This is due to the nature of heterogeneous systems in an intelligent building as a distributed entity that needs a certain degree of interoperability and joint execution of tasks for managing heterogeneous systems that consist of different platforms and protocols. There is a need for interoperability in an intelligent building with a bespoke solution that could make the heterogeneous subsystems ‘talk’ with each other and interoperate regardless of the operating platform. To solve the interoperability problem, Web Services technology is seen as a potential solution that could deal with the dynamic environment of an intelligent building. In this paper, we describe a SOAP-based middleware implementation for managing heterogeneous subsystems in an intelligent building. The proposed middleware solution utilizes the SOAP technology together with ECA rule mechanism in managing subsystems interoperation in a federated manner. Experiments and performance evaluation of the middleware had been carried out to justify the performance requirement of heterogeneous systems in an intelligent building.

This paper describes a middleware framework for integrating heterogeneous building automation systems (BAS) on the Internet. The proposed framework combines OPC (OLE for Process Control) and Web Services to integrate data and services on the Internet. It utilizes the OPC technologies in LAN and the powerful communication capability of Web Services to accommodate different communication interfaces/protocols and provide public Web Services methods. These public Web Services methods can be invoked by heterogeneous BAS or other enterprise applications to realize BAS integration and interoperation with enterprise applications on the Internet, thus filling the gap between BAS control network and data communication network. The design and implementation of the middleware technology are presented in this paper. Experiments and evaluation on performance of the middleware are also conducted and presented.

This paper defines the data and inference requirements for the integration of analysis applications with a product model described by a CAD/CAE application. Application input conditions often require sets of complex data that may be considered views of a product model database. We introduce a method that is compatible with the STEP and PLIB product description standards to define an intermediate model that selects, extracts, and validates views of information from a product model to serve as input for an engineering CAD/CAE application. The intermediate model framework was built and tested in a software prototype, the Internet Broker for Engineering Services (IBES). The first research case for IBES integrates applications that specify certain components, for example pumps and valves, with a CAD/CAE application. This paper therefore explores a sub-set of the general problem of integrating product data semantics between various engineering applications. The IBES integration method provides support for a general set of services that effectively assist interpretation and validate information from a product model for an engineering purpose. Such methods can enable application interoperation for the automation of typical engineering tasks, such as component specification and procurement.