Object-Oriented Framework for the Design of Home/Building Automation Systems

The increasing demand on functionalities in new home and building automation systems leads to a considerable complexity increase both in the development as well as in the operation and maintenance of these systems. The major challenge is how obtain systems entirely integrated from isolated devices and subsystems. It is believed that an important stage to assess the actual need of this integration is to project an automating system without a specific technological focus, which does not occur nowadays. Due to the lack of supporting tools for the project, the stages of specification and project are generally focused on the available technology for implementation. This article aims to fill in this gap by specifying an object-oriented framework for the development of applications in the building automation, enabling the modelling of the systems regardless of the technology it will use.