Model Predictive Control for Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning Systems

Abstract

AbstractIn heating ventilating and air conditioning (hvac) systems, model predictive control (mpc) is rarely used up to now. However, the following properties of hvac systems make mpc a well suited control methodology: the plant is a multiple input, multiple output system and its inputs are constrained – both in their value and in their rate of change. Moreover, several disturbances acting on the plant like varying outdoor air temperature or outdoor humidity can be measured. Furthermore, time constants are relatively large which makes it easy to perform the required optimization of the mpc strategy in time. This contribution presents the application of mpc to a real world hvac system. The considered hvac system consists of standard industrial components. The core components of the system are water‐to‐air heat exchangers, both for heating and for cooling purposes as well as a steam humidifier. Hence, air temperature and air humidity can be varied with the help of the investigated hvac system. The derivation of the plant model based on thermodynamic relations is presented as well as the application of the mpc strategy to the real world system. The plant contains some nonlinear elements which have to be dealt with when applying the mpc strategy. (© 2011 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)