Adding Static and Dynamic Semantics to Building Information Models

Abstract

Smart cyber-physical spaces indicate spatial environments which include both cyber and physical elements interacting with each other. In the construction industry, Building Information Models are the de facto standard for specifying complex information about building infrastructures, a representation which can also be extended for the specification of cyber-physical spaces. By providing formal static and dynamic semantics in terms of topological concepts of locality and connectivity of entities it is possible to support many forms of advanced analyses typically performed in software engineering. Static semantics aim to broadly support reasoning about latent qualities of a design. Dynamic semantics aim to deal with the dynamism that a space exhibits when additionally considering the ways it may change along with entities inhabiting it. Motivated by the setting of a smart hospital, we show how both qualitative and quantitative properties can be specified and verified.