I have just come across a short but interesting interview with H. Michael Newman, the “Father” of BACnet. The interview can be downloaded from here.

Two points in particular caught my interest. One is that according to Newman, as far as standards go, BACnet is an EN standard and thus BACnet is now the “law of the land” in the 28 member states of Europe. But control algorithms cannot be entirely decoupled from the underlying communication philosophy, so I believe algorithm developers might do well to familiarize themselves with the principles of BACnet.

The other was the existence of a textbook on building control written by Michael Newman, Direct Digital Control of Building Systems: Theory and Practice. Textbooks on building control being such a rarity I think this book will be worth a trip to the library.