Building Automation System for World Academy School Project

This article talks about the project of designing a complete building based automation system majorly for the power consumption for the purpose of controlling a school, called World Academy School in King Abdullah Economic City. The article covers the characteristics of the project, objectives developed for the project, distinctive activity, identified issues and their solutions, and project review.

CE 2.1 Project Information
Name of the project: World Academy School Project
Location of the project: King Abdullah Economic City
Project Duration: August of 2017 to September of 2018
Contractor: IHCC
Role and Designation during the time: Developer of the Project and Team Member
CE 2.2 Project Background
CE 2.2.1 Characteristics of the project
Building automation consists of the entire control or management of an entire building
installation that includes heating, security equipment, light and air conditioning. The major
objective is reduction of resource consumption, increment of safety and security and even
increasing comfort of people. A comprehensive and largely distributed control software is
require for making use of the entire equipment. While working with IHCC contractor, I got the
opportunity to be a part of a noteworthy project in professional career. The main scope of this
project was designing a complete building based automation system majorly for the power
consumption for the purpose of controlling a school, called World Academy School in King
Abdullah Economic City. I had to make the school automated as well as managed by the
presence detectors that are located in each room and corridor within the distance of 10Km in
between each presence detector. For each and every classroom, I considered 3 distinctive
lighting circuits that would be managed with 3 different levels of flux. I have used a presence

detector since it comprises of an IR sensor to measure the flux level within a room. This school
comprises of three floors, where the ground floor and first floor are of same size, whereas second
floor is comparatively smaller in size. Hence, in the project, I have successfully designed a
building automation system in World Academy School for controlling power consumption after
considering each and every technical specification.
CE 2.2.2 Objectives developed for the project
I have maintained a proper sequential manner in my project of designing automation
control system in World Academy School and have followed all types of standards and
specifications. Thus, for the purpose of completing this project successfully and then simulating
and evaluating the respective performances of designing and fabrication, I have developed these
below provided objectives:
 To provide a compact design for building automation system in World Academy School.
 To fulfill every requirement of the client.
 To provide a design for the layout that describes SLD, location of every presence detector
sensor and distribution of electric panels that comprise of the controllers.
 To draw designs of electric panel with two proper and detailed schematic diagrams of
240 V as well as 30 V KNX i-bus distribution.
 To provide supervisions to fabrication of panel and trouble shooting the respective
electric panel.
 To program all applications in devices for ensuring efficient functionalities of the
devices.
 To use CAN for completing the entire network.

Supervisor of the
project
Developer of the
Project and team
member (Me)
Team Member of the
project
Team Member of the
project
 To follow a sequential manner in the project so that execution is much easier in
comparison to the others.
 To contrast and analyze my experimental results with my evaluated theoretical outcomes
of the project.
CE 2.2.3 My area of work
Since I had experience in core automation and control engineering projects and I have
executed several similar projects beforehand, I was appointed as the developer of project and a
responsible team member by my project supervisor. I have previously led project teams and
hence my supervisor had confidence upon me that I will not confront any type of complexity
while project execution with my team. Designing projects is my strength and thus I took the
responsibility of proposing a complete design to the automation system. Moreover, with the ease
of using my intellect, logical reasoning and automation engineering skills, I was able to solve
every technical difficulty faced in this work.
CE 2.2.4 Project Group

Figure 1: Team Members Associated with the project
CE 2.2.5 My responsibilities throughout the project
In this particular project of World Academy School, I was assigned to propose a design
for the building automation system especially for its power consumption. I had selected the
controllers that represent in five panels, two of which within ground floor, and two within first
floor and the last one on second floor. I even had to send drawings to our panel fabricator for
building these electric panels and arranging them accordingly. My other responsibilities included
building visualization system for simplifying the user interface, designing project after making
BOQ and then getting acceptance of materials required from client. As soon as the electric panels
were being made, I had to send them to the project site for further installation. I had also
provided these drawings to out contractor for making him understand the entire automation
concept and even to make these wiring without misconceptions. Finally, I had to program each
device after providing them with proper addresses and then setting functionalities and
parameters.
CE 2.3 Distinctive Activity
CE 2.3.1 Comprehending the Theory of the Project
The major theories of automation and control engineering, which I had considered in this
project were power consumption and sensor detection. Since, energy saving is a major issue in
today’s world, it has led to the fact of increase in oil price. The manager of World Academic
School had mentioned the fact of power consumption reduction in their requirement file and one
of the serious concerns was excess power consumption by electric lights within the classrooms. I

came up with the idea for resolving this issue by turning on few of the lights on basis of flux
level in the classroom.
I have considered field bus of CAN or controller area network in my project. This
network is being developed for coupling the complex controllers after extensively been utilized
in the automotive area. In the school building, I have used CAN as an installation bus since it
was extremely inexpensive and the physical layer is similar to LON. STP and RS 485 interface
was being utilized here. I even learned that the transmission speed of data in CAN is 10 kbit/s in
1 km and 1 Mbit/s over 40m.
CE 2.3.2 Engineering knowledge and skills applied in the project
The major engineering knowledge and skill that I have applied in this particular project
was the working principle of CAN and power consumption. I have also applied my knowledge of
linear systems and control theory for making the design. Moreover, virtual instrumentation is
also used. Furthermore, my knowledge of AutoCAD and ETS5 software has helped me to make
diagrams and simulation.
CE 2.3.3 Accomplishment and Task Performed
I undertook the core responsibility of designing the building automation system with
CAN. I have used 8051 microprocessor or the advantage of subnets and speed of 125kbit/s
interface. Since, CAN controllers are less expensive, I did not face any issue for using presence
detector sensor. For hardware software co-designing of building automation systems, I made
SDL diagrams. The iterations in the designing process were quite understandable and these
iterations and backtracking took place in every step of system development process. The
architectural description of the building is to be considered for setting up the object structure of

complete control system. I described the SDL diagrams for hierarchical systems that were the
inputs for HW/SW co designing phase. I have used AutoCAD software for drawing the layout of
the school after labelling every presence detector and panel’s location with schematic diagram.
CE 2.3.4 Identified issues and their solutions
2.3.4.1 Issues
The most important technical difficulty that I have faced in this work was during setting
the desired parameters of functions to the presence sensors and controllers. Since, this was the
first time that I was using presence sensors, I faced major difficulty while parameter setting. Due
to this issue, I faced major delay in my work. The next issue, which I have confronted in the
project work was while turning our room AC On. As soon as I turned on the AC, I observed that
there were faults in presence detectors and it was not providing output as expected. This was due
to the air flow at ceiling and also for random switching and disturbances for delay in time.
2.3.4.2 Solutions
Regarding the first issue, I selected the software of ETS5 for programming and setting
the desired parameters of functions to the presence sensors and controllers with the help of my
project supervisor. For the next issue, I gave the solution for preventing the presence sensor from
getting exposed to flow of air. I have ordered base covers for these sensors from our project
supplier for ceasing air to affect the sensor functionality.
CE 2.3.5 Plan to produce creative and innovative work
I had made the significant strategy for producing an ingenious work after application of
autonomous and control engineering knowledge as well as skills. I even held group meetings for
helping out my fellow team members. This was also quite effective for identifying each and

every fault or flaw within the project of World Academy School and hence to make our work
effective and efficient enough.
CE 2.3.6 Collaborative work
I completed this project work with the team of IHCC for the purpose of accomplishing
the work in an efficient manner by providing the students of this school with a safe environment.
I even used good engineers and technicians for supporting me in the work.
CE 2.4 Project Review
CE 2.4.1 Project Overview
The school building automation project was being utilized based on the various services
within our selected location and movement. Finally, the entire operation was being completed
with ease and extreme accuracy and efficiency. I have used the AutoCAD software for designing
the automation system and completed the hardware software co-designing phase.
CE 2.4.2 My contribution to work
I have successfully programmed each and every devices of this project for presence
detectors and panels. Every address and application was being programmed for this system.
Finally, with the definite end goal and setting up of previous project reports, I organized project
meetings and provided introductions on project to my project supervisor.