Quantized nonlinear model predictive control for a building

© 2015 IEEE. In this paper, the task of quantized nonlinear predictive control is addressed. In such case, values of some inputs can be from a continuous interval while for the others, it is required that the optimized values belong to a countable set of discrete values. Instead of very straightforward a posteriori quantization, an alternative algorithm is developed incorporating the quantization aspects directly into the optimization routine. The newly proposed quaNPC algorithm is tested on an example of building temperature control. The results for a broad range of number of quantization steps show that (unlike the naive a posteriori quantization) the quaNPC is able to maintain the control performance close to the performance of the original continuous-valued nonlinear predictive controller and at the same time it significantly decreases the undesirable oscillations of the discrete-valued input

Identification and energy efficient control for a building: Getting inspired by MPC

© 2015 American Automatic Control Council. This paper deals with identification of a building model based on real-life data and subsequent temperature controller design. For the identification, advanced identification technique - namely MPC Relevant Identification method - is used. This approach has the capability of providing models with better prediction performance compared to the commonly used methods. Regarding the controller part, several alternatives are proposed. First, both linear and nonlinear MPC controlling the zone temperature are designed. Although highly attractive due to promising energetic savings and thermal comfort satisfaction, MPCs demand high computational power. To overcome this issue and preserve the attractive properties of the MPC, two MPC-learned feedback controllers are proposed, one learned from LMPC and the other learned from NMPC. While remaining computationally low-cost, they improve the performance of the classical controllers towards the high-performance MPC standards. The results exploiting data from real operation of an office equipped with air handling unit situated in Lakeshore building, Michigan Tech, are presented and discussed