A Scalable and Interoperable Platform for Transforming Building Information with Brick Ontology

Abstract: In the digital twin and building information era, many building automation companies searched for scalable methods to extract and analyze different building data, including Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, actuators, layout sections, zones, etc. The necessity for engineers to continuously manage the entire process for each new building creates scalability challenges. Furthermore, because construction information is sensitive, transferring data on vendor platforms via the cloud creates problems. This paper introduces a platform designed to address some of the common challenges in building automation. This is a smart platform designed for the transformation of building information into Brick ontology (Brick 2020) and graph formats. This technology makes it easy to retrieve historical data and converts the building point list into a Brick schema model for use in digital twin applications. The overarching goal of the proposed platform development is semi-automate the process while offering adaptability to various building configurations. This platform uses Brick schema and graph data structure techniques to minimize complexity, offering a semi-automated approach through its use of a tree-based graph structure. Moreover, the integration of Brick ontology creates a common language for interoperability and improves building information management. The seamless and offline integration of historical data within the developed platform minimizes data security risks when handling building information.