Model Predictive Control of Residential HVAC System

Rudra R. Vengurlekar, Uthraa K. Ramesh, and Hari S. Ganesh

Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Gandhinagar

Background and Motivation Norm MPC

L1 Norm Squared Error
• Buildings account for 40% of the total energy consumption
worldwide. Where,
Where,
• HVAC systems account for 50% of the total energy
consumed by buildings.
• However, HVAC system is important for a building, since it
helps in maintaining the residents’ comfort.
• Therefore, it is important to maintain the comfort of
residents, while minimizing the energy consumption.
Slack Norm MPC problem formulation
• This work focuses on maintaining the comfort of the
residents as well as minimizing energy consumption using Variables[2]
model predictive controller (MPC)
Where,

Where,
System Description

Results

Schematic of the house model

• Manipulated Variables: Flow rates of AC and AHU
• Control Variable: Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied,
PPD = f(RH, T, Metabolic Rate, Clothing Insulation)

Methodology

MPC Control With L1 Norm

Conclusion
Model Predictive Control
• The use of L1 Norm Objective in MPC effectively controls
the residents’ comfort with optimum energy consumption.
• The computation cost is significantly increased with L1
Norm with respect to Squared Error objective due to its
non-linear and non-differentiable nature. Thus it cannot
be implemented directly on a low cost hardware.
References
[1] D. E. Seborg, T. F. Edgar, and D. A. Mellichamp, Process Dynamics and Control.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004.
[2] Saini, R. S., Patel, S. K., & Ganesh, H. S. (2023). Energy-focused predictive control for
particulate matter concentration and thermal comfort indoors in Delhi. Journal of Building
Engineering, 73, 106745.
[3] K. Powell, A. Eaton, J. Hedengren, and T. Edgar, “A continuous formulation for logical
decisions in differential algebraic systems using mathematical programs with
complementarity constraints,” Processes, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 7, 2016. doi:10.3390/pr4010007
Methodology