PassiveLogic Autonomous Buildings Vision Showcased at AHR 2023

Summary

PassiveLogic is an early-stage technology company with a vision to achieve commercial building environmental and energy efficiency targets more effectively. This is to be accomplished by creating a physics-based ontology for next-generation control and AI (Artificial Intelligence) that is the basis for the design process through active building control and automation. Discussing HVAC control, PassiveLogic claims the new approach eliminates a range of today’s control inefficiencies citing PID overshoot/undershoot as a prime example. The PassiveLogic system design is reliant on the development of the Quantum Alliance Digital Twin Standard described further in this article. PassiveLogic believes there is no standard in the world to define autonomous systems for buildings today.

PassiveLogic aims to create standards, system architecture and products that incorporate building design and modeling to directly configure and program the company's Hive autonomous building automation and control units.

Product preview

At the January AHR 2023 in Atlanta, PassiveLogic provided a product preview of its ecosystem of tools for press and expo attendees in advance of product announcements coming later in the year. I discussed PassiveLogic with CEO Troy Harvey to learn about the company. PassiveLogic has raised more than $80 million US in venture funding to ramp up and is hiring a large number of people to create a new building automation & control system built around the development of the Quantum Digital Twin Standard. People interested in careers at PassiveLogic can see job postings here.

Digital twin standard for autonomous systems

A fundamental part of the PassiveLogic architecture is The Quantum Alliance Digital Twin Standard for Autonomous Systems described as a physics-based ontology for next-generation control and AI (Artificial Intelligence). PassiveLogic launched the Quantum Alliance in February 2022 to promote and develop an industry-spanning consensus known as the Quantum Standard to define physics-based digital twins that enable complete building autonomy. PassiveLogic owns and the organization and created the www.QuantumAlliance.org website. Currently there is no independent not for profit standards association for the Quantum Standard.

Troy Harvey acknowledges that there are different types of standards around such as BIM (Building Information Modeling ISO 19650), BRICK and Haystack. Troy Harvey, COE PassiveLogic, emphasized, “There doesn’t exist a digital twin standard for the building industry and there is no other digital twin standard in the world that is going to define autonomous systems that an end user can define a system with the digital twin that the system can control with its own definitions of the building.”

Harvey explained Quantum is the first complete Digital Twin standard for describing buildings and all the things that happen in buildings including, equipment, systems and people. “Quantum is a superset that will be able to import BIM and is compatible with lower-level standards like BRICK and Haystack.”

Quantum explorer

A preview of The PassiveLogic Quantum Explorer cloud application is hosted on the Quantum Alliance site and can be accessed by registering for free. Quantum Explorer is described as a platform for modeling structures as opposed to modeling objects. The goal is Quantum Explorer reveals the building blocks of the ontology; the domains, the objects that make up a domain, and how they are described and relate. Using the Object and Details browsers when the Quantum Standard is further defined users will be able to view the Ontology outline. At the time of writing this article Select a domain on the left sidebar (the Object browser) and its drawer of objects opens. Click an object and the Details browser opens to reveal its attributes, relationships and the definition of the selection. As you navigate the PassiveLogic Quantum Explorer it is currently only shell without a library of objects or ability to create objects. The assumption is as the standard is defined objects and user-friendly editing capabilities will be added.

Redefining workflow

PassiveLogic's mission is to revolutionize workflow including design, installation and operation of controlled systems. PassiveLogic aims to accomplish this by mission by delivering autonomous platform software that enables architects, engineers, contractors and building owners to automate systems in a fraction of the time of previous solutions, while bringing on-premises intelligent building devices to meet operational requirements and growing Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals of asset owners.

Autonomous things company

Troy Harvey defines PassiveLogic as, “the autonomous things company” based on the belief that buildings have use cases that are unique in each building and an autonomous automation & control solution will yield superior results. Harvey frames the PassiveLogic approach as analogous to achieving fully self-driving vehicles using this diagram:

Quantum software architecture

PassiveLogic's products are built on a new developing digital twin standard, Quantum with the goal of enabling users to quickly compose neural networks, without prerequisite training. PassiveLogic's AI framework will leverage the Quantum models to unify system code, training and AI inferencing into a single paradigm. PassivLogic believes this approach is magnitudes faster than industry benchmarks such as TensorFlow an end-to-end platform to build and deploy ML (Machine Learning) models.

PassiveLogic’s company's compiler technology is being open sourced into Apple's Swift compiler toolchain. Swift is a high-level general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple Inc. and the open-source community first released in 2014. Swift was developed as a replacement for Apple's earlier programming language Objective-C that lacked modern language features. Initially a proprietary language it was made open source in 2015 under the Apache License and is available on Apple’s platforms, Linux, Ubuntu, Android and Amazon Linux.

Hive controller

Harvey described the role of the Hive Controller, which is pictured at the top of this feature. "To solve complex, compute-intensive problems like autonomous systems we created the first 'industrial-grade AI' platform, that takes us beyond research-centric deep learning, enabling compile-time, type checked, heterogeneous models that we can deliver into the hands of regular people." Leveraging NVIDIA technology PassiveLogic Hive control platform unites sensors, IoT and controllable equipment with an edge-based autonomy engine built on the Quantum digital twin standard. PassiveLogic is member of NVIDIA Inception program that is a free program designed to help startups evolve faster through access to cutting-edge technology and NVIDIA experts, opportunities to connect with venture capitalists, and co-marketing support to heighten your company’s visibility.

Hive controllers are built on the NVIDIA Jetson System on Module (SOM) that includes a GPU, CPU, memory, power management, high-speed interfaces and more. They’re available in a wide range of performance, power-efficiency and form factors using PCIe connector standards. Jetson modules are supported by a common NAVIDIA software stack, letting companies develop once and deploy everywhere. The Jetson platform provides end-to-end acceleration for AI applications. Jetson ecosystem partners provide software, hardware design services and off-the-shelf compatible products from carrier boards to full systems, so you can get to market faster with AI embedded and edge devices.

Thoughts and observations

I see PassiveLogic’s vision as similar to Industry 4.0 when it was launched in 2011 centered on Cyber Physical Industrial Systems, which has been evolving integrating computation, networking and physical processes: the combination of several systems of different nature whose main purpose is to control a physical process and, through feedback, adapt itself to new conditions, in real time. Real progress has been made to achieve Industry 4.0 goals, particularly with open standards. A number of digital twin standards are emerging in various industries and organizations, including the International Standards Organization (ISO 23247), Industrial Digital Twins Association (IDTA) and Digital Twins Consortium (DTC), and Eclispe Foundation Digital Twin. In addition, object and equipment object model standards are growing, including OPC UA and MTP (Module Type Packages). This is leading to industry collaborations between groups to achieve a number of goals including system wide contextual data, plug ‘n play, virtual commissioning, model based design and inherent digital twins.