Abstract
Digital communication networks have become a core technology in advanced building automation systems. BACnet(Building Automation and Control networks) is a standard data communication protocol designed specifically for building automation and control systems. BACnet adopts Master-Slave/Token-Passing(MS/TP) protocol as one of its field level networks. In this study, we introduce a method of implementing a bandwidth allocation scheme in the MS/TP protocol. The bandwidth allocation scheme improves the capability of real-time communication of the original MS/TP protocol. The bandwidth allocation scheme introduced in this paper can be easily implemented in the existing MS/TP protocol with a slight modification. In this study, we actually developed the hardware and firmware of the modified MS/TP communication module in which the bandwidth allocation scheme is implemented. Using the modified MS/TP communication module, we developed an experimental model in order to examine the validity of the bandwidth allocation scheme in the MS/TP protocol. Experimental results show that the modified MS/TP protocol satisfies the requirements of real time communication for periodic and urgent messages of BACnet communication services.