North Building Technologies

The eXtensible Object Model (XOM) is at the core of every North product, and is the base-concept that allows systems from different manufacturers, in different control fields, to be linked together to form truly integrated building control systems.

The model has evolved over many years, and is the most powerful model in the integrated building control field, incorporating fire, security, hvac, lighting, power, air-conditioning, etc.. The beautiful thing is - as new technologies appear, the model extends to include them.

The model caters for simple value-objects, such as flags, integers, real numbers, and times; medium-component objects, such as time-profiles, historic trends, and remote procedure calling; and complex objects like file-systems, devices, controllers, processors, buildings, sites, etc. - a truly powerful model

Standard profiles can be created for particular devices - and these can evolve, using normal object-oriented methods.

Manufacturer-specific evolution of standard objects is catered for using both local, and distributed, object-aggregation and -composition.

Each object has a type-definition and other engineer documentation, and automatic detection of objects simplifies engineering and use of the system

Recently, the BACNet and LON object models have been incorporated, allowing engineers to use these systems in more powerful integrated building control systems

XOP

XOM, being distributed, requires a communications protocol. The Extendable Object Protocol, XOP, covers the middle-layers of the ISO-OSI model, and is implemented (along with one of several lower-layer stacks) within our products.

Although engineers use XOM/XOP without realising it, organisations that wish to extend our product range need an understanding of these core mechanisms. For more details contact us.

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