A distributed control wireless system for environmental humidity determination based on adaptive controller model

Abstract

Environmental conditioning is a major research application area in the concept of control theory. The parameter of interest is mostly measured and evaluated against a reference in determining the initialisation threshold for the designed systems. This paper has implemented a system for controlling the heat parameters of a dwelled environment based on the integration of Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) features into a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) system. A model is developed to describe the temperature evolution in the constituent electronic units of the thermally active system, as a function for determining the environmental humiture impact. The generated heat and the forced cooled air by convective flow across the neighbouring devices, and consequently, the networked wireless nodes within the defined space are also modelled and analysed for adaptive control implementation. Both linear and non-linear terms are presented in the discrete set of equations representing the mathematically modelled system. Two scenarios were simulated and analysed: centralized model adaptive control (CMAC) and decentralized model adaptive control (DMAC). The evaluation of the control methods is ascertained by comparing with classic P/PI and on/off controllers, using a very low inoccupation temperature reference while increasing the occupation period in the adaptive control prediction horizon. The decentralized model adaptive controller provides improved performance in the reduction of the consumption index by about 7.2%, while the distributed and centralized schemes show an improvement in the thermal comfort with about 39.2% and reduction in the consumed energy by about 12.2%. A suitable conclusion is being made on the optimal placement of the nodes to ensure maximum convective cooling of the space, derived from the simulated results of the models and the adjourning tempering algorithm. The uniqueness and existence of the solutions are established through the convergence of the steady-state coefficients. The research has introduced a novel designer-friendly relative humidity-enabled adaptive control with significant range extension for acceptable indoor conditions in the design of low-energy naturally-conditioned facilities in sub-Saharan Africa.