Petri Net based Building Automation and Monitoring System

This paper presents a Petri net based building automation system and associated monitoring graphical user application. We adopt a model based development attitude, which means that we emphasize the use of models, and tools to handle those models. In this sense, system functionalities are captured as UML use cases, and Petri nets are used as the main modeling formalism. The system´s model is built upon each use case and its translation into a state diagram or Petri net model. Afterwards, the set of partial models is combined through a composition operation, leading to the construction of a Petri net based behavioral model for the whole system. The proposal exploits the association between key characteristics of the Petri net model and key graphical characteristics presented in the system´s synoptic. In this sense, execution of the Petri net model will produce an implicit update of the system´s synoptic. The paper presents the application to a building monitoring system composed by three sub-systems: lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), and intrusion detection.