Automation in buildings is getting ubiquitous. This can be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, due to the emergence of Field Area Networks, the cost of design and integration, and especially maintenance, has been reduced significantly. Furthermore, higher level functions, such as energy optimization, security and safety, scenario variations or facility management, can only be realized with high performance building automation networks. Industry developed first standards for such networks in the 1990ies. Since Building Automation was proved to be a lucrative business prospect, it has also become a topic for the scientific and research community. It was therefore essential for the IEEE (and specifically the IES) to have taken the initiative to launch a forum where volunteers can propose activities to create synergies among involved researchers, user organizations and industry all over the world. Of course, for historical reasons, national standards in Building Automation might vary dramatically, but developments in the different international committees have shown that it is possible to set common standards, which can help to reduce the costs and increase the economic significance of this discipline. The field of Building Automation is rather comprehensive. We do not only have to include classical control networks like BACnet, KNX or LonWorks. Emerging themes like wireless networks, or aspects of safety and especially secure networks, and many others, have become increasingly important.

Current research in the area of Building Automation, Control, and Management can be generally listed as follows.

• Cybersecurity of Building Automation Systems (full systems and individual sensor/ actuator nodes)
• Sensor and actuator networks (novel sensor and actuator technologies, ultra-low power wireless networks, wired network technologies)
• Engineering and commissioning (design automation, system modeling, self-organization, deployment optimization)
• Integration aspects (middleware, OSGi, service-oriented architecture, semantics, cloud computing)
• Advanced control and optimization (predictive control, simulation-based control, cooperative systems, optimization approaches)
• User aspects and context awareness (behavior models, ambient assisted living)
• User interfaces (ergonomics, wearable devices, mobile devices)
• Fault detection and diagnosis (monitoring, fault detection and diagnosis)
• Dependability, safety and security (fault tolerance, reliability, privacy, safety and
security)
• Data analytics (benchmarking, building performance, virtual sensors, machine learning)
• Demonstrations and field experimentation (testbed research and living laboratories;
experimental practice and methodologies)
• Experimental methods (experimental design; quality management; test procedures; literature reviews; design exploration)