Yoshihiro Nakajima
Editor-in-Chief, IPv6style
NTT Communications installed building facility management systems using IPv6 at the two public facilities managed by the Metropolis of Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and they have started trials to demonstrate their effectiveness. These activities are part of the “IPv6 Deployment Field Trial” by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. This time, I investigated how the IPv6-based building facility management system is being used at one of those facilities, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, located in Toshima Ward, Tokyo.
The current state of building management systems
In large-scale buildings, the equipment used for power, air conditioning, lighting, etc. is managed centrally in monitoring rooms. This equipment exists behind the scenes and you don’t generally see it that much. You can turn lights on and off and control the air condition in each office. However, for the purposes of detecting malfunctions, preventing disasters, and conserving energy, management and control of the building’s common areas and offices are generally centralized. It is inefficient for the building manager to walk around in a huge building turning off the lights in the public areas at night; it is also important to promptly ascertain the problem in order to make repairs, etc. when malfunctions happen to equipment in the building.
Up until now, various building facility management system vendors have been providing proprietary systems for building facility management, and these systems were not compatible with each other. Also, the purpose of these systems is to monitor and control. In terms of how they are controlled, they require humans to make the decisions. In this trial, a sensor network was installed; monitoring and controlling are the core of the system. Furthermore, analysis can be performed on the detailed information that is collected from the sensors.
The example that I will introduce in this article is a theater owned by the Metropolis of Tokyo, however, the system works basically the same even for office buildings.
Building facility management system using IPv6
The building facility management system installed at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space for this trial can monitor and control the following:
- Air conditioning
turn on/off
adjust temperature - Power
detect malfunctions - Elevators/Escalators
detect malfunctions - Lightings
turn on/off
In the other trial at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, they use temperature sensors and motion sensors to determine the temperature and how crowded it is in the exhibition rooms so that temperature management is done appropriately, and to determine which exhibition rooms people tend to stay in by counting the number of visitors.
Reasons for using IPv6 for building facility management
As we all know, the lifetime of buildings is long. It requires major construction if you want to add and switch equipment once the building is completed. Of course, not only does it cost a lot, but it also prevents people from using the facilities while under construction. If it is a commercial building, it leads to lost business opportunities. So, building landlords need to have a system design assuming long-term use of the building from the start.
Usually, a specific vendor’s management system is installed when the building is built. Systems by different vendors are not compatible and are proprietary. Because of that, they depend on the vendor of that specific building facility management system to provide services such as system maintenance, etc. once the building is completed. Depending on one specific vendor for a long period of time creates concerns that not just building landlords but public organizations such as ones in this trial may not be able to order at sensible prices.
So, there are advantages in using IPv6, which is an open technology, to build such systems. From the perspective of public organizations, they can be less dependent on a specific vendor and it is possible to order at sensible prices. Also, when parts are manufactured using an open technology, you can expect them to be mass-produced. That means that it is easier for a price competition among manufacturers to occur, and so there’s a greater possibility of getting parts at a lower price. In other words, it creates openness in building management systems.
Besides such openness related to procurement, there are many other advantages. By building M2M (Machine to Machine) networks such as a sensor network, it becomes possible to collect more detailed data than in the past. By statistically analyzing the collected data and using it for predictive control, you can automatically stop the AC in order not to use unnecessary energy or not stop the AC when needed so that you can reduce overall waste and expect the energy efficiency to go up. Also, if you can determine which areas of the building have more visitors using motion sensors, you can dynamically change the assignment of staff and security guards and provide various services. So, you can systematically manage the site, and you can expect that it will lead to improved customer satisfaction as a result.
Also, technically speaking, there are significant advantages to using IPv6. When trying to manage facilities in a large-scale building, you may need around 20,000-30,000 sensor nodes. Implementing this with IPv4 makes the network setup complicated and it involves enormous costs for solving network problems and changing networks in the future.
Furthermore, if you can create a common network using IP, it can be used multiple times for different purposes. IP infrastructure can be used not only for building management, but also for VoIP telephones and for providing Internet connectivity within the building.
These are the advantages in terms of efficiency within the building. Also, using Internet technology makes it easier to monitor remotely as well. In case of the Metropolis of Tokyo, departments related to the management of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office Building, outsourced building facility management companies, vendors of equipment such as elevators, the power company, etc. can monitor the facility from their own location, and it makes it possible to promptly and appropriately deal with any problems such as malfunctions.
Summary
The IPv6 Deployment Field Trial started three years ago. In the first year, technical trials for migrating from IPv4 to IPv6 were conducted within the research labs and deployment guidelines were created. In the second year, trials on uses for IPv6 and such were conducted and several applications were developed. In the third year, which is this year, they are conducting specific trials, targeting local government services, to see how much IPv6 solutions, in other words, computer networks, can solve existing issues.
In building facility management systems, more advanced control is sought in order to conserve energy resources, reduce CO2 emissions, etc. The goal of the deployment trials is to research on how IPv6 technology contributes to these objectives. In a different trial, it was reported that detailed control of air conditioning and lighting reduced energy costs by about 30%. A similar result will probably be verified in this trial as well.
In terms of investing in more efficient equipment, using IP technology in the long term is also effective. There have been many cases where office networks with many client PCs were switched to IPv6. When connecting more sensors to the network, if it is a network using IPv4, it is said that the management cost will increase due to the low availability related to address management and network setup changes. Because of examples like this, people want to use IPv6 in order to lower costs and increase customer satisfaction.
