Integrating Building Automation Systems and IPv6 in the Internet of Things

The vision of the Internet of Things is a seamless integration of diverse physical objects in the Internet through a virtual representation. In recent years, the target area of IoT constantly broadened from products within supply chains and nowadays encompasses all objects that are summarized under the label of ubiquitous and pervasive computing. Therefore also building automation devices are considered for an integration in the IoT, where they are for example used to realize a smart and sustainable building operation. Ubiquitous access to the objects is facilitated by the concept of building automation systems (BAS) that already provide a virtual representation of physical objects, mainly sensors, actuators and control devices. In practice, BAS follow a layered system architecture which defines a management, an automation and a field tier. In the field tier, non-IP communication based on twisted pair, power line or radio frequency technologies is prevalent. For the backbone infrastructure at the automation and management tier, IPv4 has become the de-facto standard. At this level, the transition towards IPv6 is the most promising technology to enable the full realization of the Internet of Things vision. New features like the larger address space, self-configuration, quality of service mechanisms and security promise a better integration of building automation technology in the IoT. Therefore this article investigates the readiness and compatibility of existing BAS technologies with IPv6. The integration challenges and new opportunities of IPv6 for these technologies are presented. Furthermore, possible integration scenarios for IPv6 using BAC net as example use case are sketched.