BacNET Integration Module

What is BACnet?

The BACnet data communications protocol for building automation and control networks was adopted as a standard by the American National Standards Institute and the American Society of Heating and Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers in 1995. Since then major providers of building management and HVAC (heating ventilation and air conditioning) systems have developed products that meet this standard allowing interoperability between manufacturer building automation control products. The major manufacturers are members of the BACnet manufacturers association (www.bacnetassociation.org). The association encourages providers of systems in other related market segments such as access control, fire and safety, lighting control and lift manufacturers to join the association and provide a BACnet capability within their products.

In recent years there has been increasing demand to integrate access control and security management systems with other devices and systems. Initial developments expanded the scope of access control systems into a wider security management role and integrated other security related systems such as video badging, CCTV switching, entry-phones, and intruder alarm systems. The level of integration has become more sophisticated following the development of full integration with the new generation of digital video management systems. G4Tec´s access control systems have followed these trends and offer extensive levels of integration with a wide range of systems and devices.

More recently there has been demand to integrate access control with other safety and facilities management related systems such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). There are similarities between all of these systems, largely since they all comprise a series of geographically separated devices, they all convey time sensitive information relating to the welfare of employees, and they all have a need for the monitoring and control of devices and alarms at a central point.

The G4Tec BACnet Module

The G4Tec BACnet Gateway module has been developed for the range of G4Tec access control and security management systems to answer the demands of customers wishing to integrate system alarms with BACnet-compliant building management systems. The G4Tec BACnet Gateway acts as a BACnet Server and gives the ability to pass access control system alarms and control of access control system devices to a BACnet-compliant third-party system. This will be used by organisations wishing to use an HVAC or other building automation system to manage the alarms for their organisation.