Tutorial: Integrate BACnet devices and their objects

To make the configuration of BACnet devices and their objects more easier, a tool called BACnet Explorer is provided. Starting with BMS Platform and MP Server version R2 Build 2068, this tool can be used to discover BACnet devices and their objects online or BACnet EDE files can be imported.

This tool is started from the NETx BMS Studio while the NETx BMS Core Server is stopped. To start the BACnet Explorer, shut down the NETx BMS Core Server and select the menu item BACnet / Start Explorer ...

Afterwards, the start page of the BACnet Explorer is shown.

Here it is possible to choose Online Discovery or Import from EDE files. In addition, it has to be decided whether the current configuration shall be fully replaced or updated. "Update" means that new devices and objects are added to the current ones and already existing ones are updated.

Online discovery of BACnet devices and objects

At the first time the BACnet Explorer is used within a BMS Workspace, the BACnet Explorer will warn you that the current IP address is not valid:

Acknowledge the warning to get to the main window of the online discovery. Afterwards, select the local IP address that shall be used to communicate with the BACnet network. Then press the scan button (if required you can limit the search by entering a minimum and maximum device ID):

After a few seconds, all available BACnet devices (IP and non-IP ones) will be listed:

Next, select the devices and objects that you want to integrate. After selecting a device, the BACnet Explorer will search for all objects that are available within the device and which are supported by the NETx BMS Core Server.

Then press the add button to add the selection. The tool will ask you for the default setting of your added objects – change the settings to your project needs.

After having added all required devices and objects, press the next buttons. In the following two windows you can see the new devices and objects that will be added to the configuration.

If needed, you can always go back to discovery window and change the configuration as required.

In the last window you will see the final configuration of the devices and objects including the existing configuration when update was chosen. If everything is fine, press the Finish button to save the configuration to your workspace. The BACnet Explorer will close then.

Importing EDE files

If an online discovery is not possible and BACnet EDE files are provided by the BACnet integrator, you can import them too. After having selected the appropriate option at the starting window, the import window is shown.

Select one or more files using the Open file(s) button. The BACnet Explorer supports both EDE formats – MS Excel and CSV. For the later one, the BACnet Explorer will try to detect the CSV deliminator automatically. If this does not work, please choose the correct deliminator and try again.

Within the logs, you find the results of the import.

After having added all required EDE files, press the next buttons. In the following window, you can see the new devices that will be added to the configuration.

Since the EDE files do not contain the address information i.e. IP address of IP address or link layer address of non-IP devices, the address information must be added in this step. For each device, click on the … button and add the address information. After press next to get to the window where all new objects are listed:

If required, you can always go back to discovery window and change the configuration are required.

In the last window you will see the final configuration of the devices and objects including the existing configuration when update was chosen. If everything is fine, press the Finish button to save the configuration to your workspace. The BACnet Explorer will close then.

Starting the Core Server

Start the Core Server and open an Item Tree. All BACnet devices and objects are found under the branch NETx\XIO\BACnet. Each device has one entry within the Item Tree. Below this entry a GATEWAY item shows the connection state of the BACnet device. In addition, all selected objects are listed. As defined by the BACnet standard some BACnet objects are read-only (e.g Binary Input, Analog Input, ...) and some are also writable (e.g. Binary Output, Analog Output, ...). Input objects have only one item which shows the current Present Value of the BACnet object. Output objects have in addition for each used BACnet priority one Write Item to send a write command with the given priority and one Reset Item to reset the given priority. The NETx BMS Server supports multiple priorities at the same time. The following figure shows an example.