Next-Generation Building Automation

The global building automation control systems (BACS) market is estimated to be around USD 82 billion, forecasted to grow by 7.9% (76). Despite this growth, the current generation of BACS is still not prepared for the challenges and complexities that arise with the need to optimize comfort, safety, and energy efficiency across building automation domains.

The current generation of BACS is typically designed to manage specific functions like HVAC, lighting, or security independently, leading to fragmented operations, discomfort, and inefficiencies. To address those challenges, BACS will need to manage the simultaneous optimization of multiple building domains, a challenge often unmet by the current BACS due to the isolated nature of building domains. Moreover, as buildings incorporate more advanced technologies, the complexity of managing disparate systems centrally increases, often requiring specialized knowledge for each subsystem. Centralized systems, while offering a unified control interface, often struggle to handle this complexity. These constraints highlight the need for next-generation BACS that address the multifaceted demands of modern buildings.

Next-generation BACS will combine deeper system integration with increasing decentralization and edge intelligence. The trend can be broken into three interconnected themes: the duality of integration and separation, flatter system architectures, and the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI).

The duality of integration and separation is at the heart of this evolution. On the one hand, there is a push to unify building automation verticals, such as HVAC, lighting, and security, into interconnected platforms. Integrated systems improve energy management, streamline operations, and simplify monitoring through centralized control. On the other hand, independent sub-systems are emerging as a viable alternative to address growing system complexity. These systems operate decentralized and autonomously, offering improved reliability, simplified installation and maintenance, and increased flexibility for upgrades. This dual approach allows buildings to balance integration with autonomy based on their unique requirements.

The development of flatter BACS architectures based on enhanced standardized communication technology is another defining characteristic of this trend. Traditional BACS rely heavily on centralized systems to process data and make decisions. The rise of IP as the standard protocol, together with edge computing, transforms this centralized decision-making towards decentralized decision-making. Edge computing pushes intelligence to the building network’s edge, enabling data to be processed and decisions to be made directly at the sub-system level. This topology does not rely anymore on a central BACS which increases overall system resilience and performance by reducing complexities and latencies. It enables real-time optimization and user-centric functions at the sub-system level. For example, IoT-enabled HVAC sub-systems can dynamically adjust performance in response to changes in occupancy or environmental conditions of a room, improving efficiency and resilience without the need for a centralized BACS decision-making.

Finally, artificial intelligence is transforming building automation by enabling real-time, data-driven optimization. AI systems analyze information collected from IoT sensors to predict and adjust energy use, ensuring a balance between occupant comfort and energy efficiency. AI-based optimization adapts to variables like occupancy, weather forecasts, and energy demand patterns. This capability not only enhances comfort but can also reduce energy consumption by around one-fourth depending on the quality of the installed system and its maintenance (often, the quality of systems deteriorates over its lifetime due to careless maintenance activities). Acknowledging its crucial role in improving efficiency and reducing operational costs, it is expected that AI-enabled BACS will be implemented in over 60% of commercial buildings in the next years, ensuring the systems operate smoothly and efficiently, and minimize downtime and lifecycle costs (77).