A constrained model predictive control for the building thermal management with optimal setting design

Today, the building sector is the most important consumer of energy. The main challenge in building management is to obtain the desired performance taking into account many aspects such as comfort requirements, variation of building physical characteristics, system constraints, and energy management. For this purpose, a predictive control approach applied to the building thermal has been designed to achieve desired performances combined with an energy optimization approach based on intrinsic system parameters. The developed approach is applied with an online identification system for effective predictive control to take into account the reel building characteristics and to choose the optimal tuning parameters. The simulation results show good performances in terms of accuracy and robustness face to internal and external disturbances with respect to system constraints

Linear matrix inequalities tool to design predictive model control for greenhouse climate

Modeling and regulating the internal climate of a greenhouse have been a challenge as it is a complex and time variant system. The main goal is to regulate the internal climate considering the difference between nighttime and diurnal phases of the day. To depict the comportment of the greenhouse, a multi model approach based on two multivariable black box models have been proposed representing the diurnal and nighttime phases of the day. The least-squares method is utilized to identify the parameters of these two models based on an experimental collected data. We have shown that these two models are more representative than one model to describe the dynamic behavior of the greenhouse. The second contribution is to control the internal temperature and hygrometry respecting constraints on actuators and controlled variables. For this purpose, a constrained model predictive control scheme based on the multi-modeling approach have been developed. The optimization problem of the control law is transformed to a convex optimization problem includes linear matrix inequalities (LMI). The simulation results show that the adopted control method of indoor climate allows rapid and precise tracking of set points and rejects effectively the external disturbances affecting the greenhouse

The influence of antiferroelectric compounds on helical pitch of orthoconic W-1000 mixture

The influence of six antiferroelectric compounds on the helical pitch of mixture W-1000, which was reported as long pitch orthoconic antiferroelectric liquid crystalline mixture, was checked by spectrophotometry and polarimetry methods. The electro-optical properties for the mixture with the longest pitch were measured. An improvement in electro-optical response due to the long pitch is reported. The novelty in electro-optical properties is the good symmetry response

UV Dichroism in Vertically Aligned Nematic Displays

Vertically aligned negative nematics are employed in high-end projection applications, where extremely high light fluxes are employed. Under these conditions, the UV photochemical stability of the material becomes an issue that must be included in the characterization process of such devices. Photochemical aging tests for vertically aligned microdisplay, however, must take into account the linear dichroism shown by the liquid crystal material upon switching. In this work a method to evaluate UV linear dichroism is described. The method is included in a comparative study of the electrooptical performance of two negative nematic mixtures, one experimental and one commercial

Electro-optical properties of an orthoconic liquid crystal mixture (W-182) and its molecular dynamics

We observed that the perfect dark state problem could be solved by using orthoconic antiferroelectric liquid crystal (OAFLC) instead of normal AFLC by comparing the properties of isocontrast and dispersion chromaticity of W-182 OAFLC and normal AFLC CS-4001. We electro-optically observed that several subphases such as SmCγ*, SmC*β, SmC*α and antiferroelectric SmI*A phases exist in W-182 OAFLC. We dielectrically observed in 4 μm thin cell that during heating, several new phases appeared. In the high temperature antiferroelectric region, a higher order than SmC* phase could be detected dielectrically, in the temperature range of 91–98 °C, behaving similar to SmCγ* and also, another phase below SmC* region could be dielectrically detected in the temperature range of 103–1100 °C, behaving similar to SmCα*, and an antiferroelectric, similar to SmIA* phase, was observed in the lower temperature region of the antiferroelectric phase; those are definitely arising due to surface force and interfacial charges interactions. We observed both PH and PL relaxation modes in both cells, although they differed in their strength and relaxation frequency. We studied extensively our observations of PH and PL modes in the antiferroelectric region, a Goldstone mode in the ferroelectric region and a soft mode in the ferroelectric region and SmA* phases

Orthoconic antiferroelectric liquid crystals for non-display applications

Antiferroelectric liquid crystals are attractive for microdisplay applications, because of their fast switching and wide viewing angle; however the pretransitional effect reduces the contrast of the display. As a promising alternative orthoconic antiferroelectric liquid crystals (OAFLC) with a cone angle of 90º provide a good dark state between crossed polarized independently of the cell rotation. These materials are properly surface stabilized in 1.5μm thick cell required for π retardation, which limits their use in display applications. In this work, new OAFLC mixtures have been surface stabilized in thick cells. This achievement may open a new area of OAFLC applications in photonic devices

Liquid crystal temperature sensor based on a micrometric structure and a metallic nanometric layer

This letter presents a novel temperature sensor, which consists of an interdigitated comb electrode structure with a micrometric-scale size, nanometric metallic layer, and nematic liquid crystal (NLC) film. This sensor exploits the permittivity dependence of the NLC with temperature and principle of electrical conductivity above the percolation threshold in thin film metallic layers. The latter has been demonstrated to increase the temperature sensitivity considerably. The high impedance input reduces the power dissipation, and the high enough voltage output makes it easy to measure the output signal with high precision. The operation principle and fabrication process as well as the characterization of the temperature sensor are presented. Experimental results show that the device offers a sensitivity of 9 mV/°C and is dependent on the applied voltage. This is six times greater than the same structure without the use of a nanometric layer

Modal liquid crystal microaxicon array

A novel tunable liquid crystal microaxicon array is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The proposed structure is capable of generating tunable axicons (thousands of elements) of micrometric size, with simple control (four control voltages) and low voltage, and is totally reconfigurable. Depending on the applied voltages, control over the diameter, as well as the effective wedge angle, can be achieved. Controls over the diameter ranging from 107 to 77 μm have been demonstrated. In addition, a control over the phase profile tunability, from 12π to 24π radians, has been demonstrated. This result modifies the effective cone angle. The diameter tunability, as well the effective cone angle, results in a control over the nondiffractive Bessel beam distance. The RMS wavefront deviation from the ideal axicon is only λ∕3. The proposed device has several advantages over the existing microaxicon arrays, including being simple having a low cost. The device could contribute to developing new applications and to reducing the fabrication costs of current devices

Using an analytical model to design liquid crystal microlenses

We have developed new analytical expressions for designing liquid crystal (LC) microlenses. These equations are based on a novel equivalent electric circuit and can be used to create an optimum design for the LC lenses in which the lens diameter ranges from a few micrometers to several millimeters. Thus far, only experimental studies have been conducted on the LC lenses. The analytical expressions developed in this letter depend on various manufacturing parameters and can be used to design lenses with specific focal lengths and a parabolic phase profile. The required driving scheme (modal or hole-patterned) can be predicted. The LC microlenses were manufactured and electrooptically characterized: the measurements were compared using an analytical approach

A novel liquid crystal temperature sensor based on modal control principle

[Poster of]: 12th European Conference on Liquid Crystals (ECLC 2013), 22-27 September, 2013, Rhodes, Greece.The well-known electrically-controlled anisotropic properties of liquid crystals not only have been valued in displays applications, but also have led to the conception of innovative approaches for a wide and diversified field of applications, such as optical communications, imaging, metamaterials, microwaves, biomedical, etc. Also, the fact that liquid crystals parameters have a strong dependence with temperature, has allowed researchers to extend the design of liquid crystal devices into the field of sensors. The simultaneous effect of both dependences, on voltage and temperature, has been recently exploited in a novel frequency-temperature liquid crystal transducer [1]...Financial support of Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (grant no.TEC2009-13991-C02-01) and Comunidad de Madrid (grant no. FACTOTEM2 S2009/ESP-1781) is acknowledged.No publicad