Sink state analysis in multi-tenant smart buildings

In the last years, many research projects have focused on the design of complex Building Management Systems (BMSes) aiming at materializing the Smart Buildings vision. Unfortunately, multi-user management is not totally supported in modern BMSes, multi-tenant implications have not been adequately investigated and also some other issues remain unsolved in state-of-the-art approaches. For instance, a behavioral analysis regarding the correct control of the building is needed to ensure the correct functioning of the Smart Building control system. In this paper we will present an approach to formally verify a Smart Building control system. Differently from the existing solutions, mainly derived from the control theory world, we propose a stochastic method that copes with the probabilities that each rule inside a ruleset has to be triggered. This method leverages the features and the capabilities of the specific scenario represented by Smart Buildings, in order to simplify Building managers duties in real world applications. The power of this method has been validated through a wide set of rules obtained by means of an experimental campaign. The analyses show that users generally tend to (unconsciously) specify sinks and assertive rules, symptom that a collaborative management approach is far to be applicable in real world applications without the help of a tool such as the one presented in this paper.