BACnet Stack: A tested BACnet Protocol Library for embedded systems

Intro to the BACnet Stack

BACnet is a communications protocol for Building Automation and Control (BAC) networks that leverage the ASHRAE, ANSI, and ISO 16484-5 standard protocol. It is currently the most popular protocol used in Building Automation Systems (BAS).

Chipkin's BACnet Stack (CAS BACnet Stack) is a royalty-free software library that allows you to add a native BACnet interface to your embedded devices or applications. The BACnet stack supports both BACnet server (Field device, power meter, gas detector, etc.) and BACnet client (HMI, Utilities, data loggers, etc.) services giving you the flexibility you need to succeed. With support for protocol revision 19, Chipkin's BACnet Stack is a market leader and one of the most up-to-date stacks available. To ensure the comprehensiveness and reliability of our BACnet Stack, Chipkin participates in Plugfest events annually, with our most recent visit taking place in 2022.

The BACnet Stack is a transport layer-independent library, making it easy to use with any transport layer such as IP, Secure Connect, MSTP, Ethernet, and even PTP and ARCnet. By giving you control of the transport layer you can optimize bandwidth and performance by exploiting the resources at your disposal, such as multi-threading and multiple simultaneous connections. See the diagram below of the BACnet Stack Layers which shows what portions are provided by the stack and what by the client:

Take it from us, we have been working with BACnet for 20+ years. Our BACnet Stack resume includes 10+ years of development, 25,000+ commits, 50,000+ lines of code, 2,500 unit tests, 50+ devices using the stack and among other capabilities, 1,000,000+ device installations. We know what we are doing. Purchasing the BACnet Stack from us will save you man-years of development when your company needs it the most. Let us handle the grunt work, BACnet Spec is complex and it takes months of work just to learn the details.

Chipkin's BACnet Stack (CAS BACnet Stack) is an application layer BACnet library for embedded systems and application development. The stack allows applicable devices to communicate using several of the BACnet flavors and can function both as a server (Field Device, etc…) or as a client (HMI, etc…).

We have also built the stack to be BACnet spec compliant (we do things according to the BACnet spec.). All devices that have used the CAS BACnet stack have passed BTL Certification (BACnet International BLT) by the BACnet Testing laboratories. We do things the right way from the start!

To ensure our BACnet stack is well-tested and compatible with industrial leaders, Chipkin attends the yearly BACnet Plugfest to test new features and services from all of the leading manufacturers. We also guarantee that no "copyleft" source code is included in the library. No GNU GPL, etc...

Furthermore, the CAS BACnet Stack is particularly well-suited to most contemporary programming styles as the API uses Json/XML to transfer requests for packet building as well as for handling back-parsed packets. Included in the sale of our Stack are support hours that can be used to consult on all things BACnet or for remote desktop support for the implementation of the library. With Chipkin, you have the experts at your side.

Source Code and Code Quality

Chipkin's BACnet Stack source code conforms to the C++/11 standard and is built for portability to many different operating systems and architectures.

Extensive unit tests have been written for our BACnet Stack in Google's C++ test framework. The source code has been tested with Valgrind to detect any memory leaks, threading issues, and performance profiling.

The CAS BACnet Stack is thread-safe and can be used on systems that do not support threading.

Other compilers and programming languages may be supported as well. Please Contact Us for more information

Supported Architectures and Operating systems

The CAS BACnet Stack is designed for maximum portability and compatibility with as many different architectures and operating systems as possible.

The CAS BACnet Stack uses a series of callbacks for accessing operating systems and network functionality. Multiple operating system interfaces have been created for the standard operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and RTOS. New interfaces can be created for other operating systems and embedded systems. Our BACnet stack can be considered network layer and operating systems independent

As of 2019, the CAS BACnet Stack supports protocol revision 19, making it a global market leader and one of a few stacks that support revision 19. Chipkin attends plugfest annually and is one of the most up-to-date stacks in the market.

Porting to other systems and architecture is supported. Please Contact Us for more information

Requirements and dependency

The CAS BACnet stack is designed to have minimum requirements to maximize the portability of the source code across as many platforms and architectures as possible. It has the ability to run on devices with very low resources by disabling BACnet services to reduce the required resources and dependencies.

Minimum Requirements:

• A relative millisecond timer
• C++ compiler
• Standard Template Library (STL)
• Networking:
• UDP for BACnet IP
• TCP/WS for BACnet Secure Connect
• RS485 Serial for BACnet MSTP

The amount of ram that the Chipkin BACnet stack requires depends on several factors including; BACnet Services supported, Object types supported, Object count, COV limits, etc...

BACnet BTL Pre-Testing Services

Sending a new BACnet device to the BACnet Testing Laboratory (BTL) for certification can be a daunting task. Each issue or error that BTL discovers through the testing process will add variable costs and delays. Depending on how long it takes your team to resolve the issues discovered during testing you may be bumped from your testing slot and have to wait for the next available testing slot.

Take it from us, we have been working with BACnet for 20+ years. Our BACnet Stack Resume includes 10+ years of development, 25,000+ commits, 50,000+ lines of code, 2,500 unit tests, 50+ devices using the stack and among other capabilities, 1,000,000+ device installations... Read More about BACnet BTL Pre-Testing