A Platform for the Agent-based Control of HVAC Systems

Abstract

Attempts to develop efficient and environmentally friendly building energy systems have led to modern complex energy concepts for buildings, which have consequently initiated a need for new control strategies for them. Multiagent control, which is known with other names like agent-based control, offers a promising solution to this challenge. To the knowledge of the authors, there are 96 platforms for multi-agent systems in different programming languages available, which are mostly java-based and mainly used in logistic applications, but there is no platform in the modeling language Modelica, which is widely used for simulation of dynamic systems, especially buildings performance simulation. This lack motivated the authors to develop a platform for agent-based control of HAVC systems. The platform eliminates the dependency of models developed in Modelica on an extra interface, which is usually required to couple the models to the platforms written in any programming languages other than Modelica. This paper presents the structure of the platform and explains how the agents' communications work. The flexibility of the optimization objective is ensured through the definition of readily interchangeable cost functions. The applicability and functionality of the platform are proved by applying the platform in the control of building energy systems examples.

Robust Cooperative Output Regulation for a Network of Parabolic PDE Systems

“…With this, the state feedback (7b) is obtained from (22d) and by inserting (26) in (17d). Particularly, the latter yields…”

“…Therefore, it is also of interest to design networked controllers for MAS with distributed-parameter agents. Applications include industrial furnaces consisting of a network of heaters (see [4]), networks of HVAC systems in building climate control (see [26]), networks of Lithium-Ion cells in battery management (see [24]) or consensus control in environmental applications (see [33]). Different from other system classes the networked control of distributedparameter MAS is still an emerging research topic.…”

Cooperative output regulation for a network of parabolic systems with varying parameters

“…Then, the solution of the IBVP (29) are calculated numerically. For this, the corresponding ICs are determined by simulating (29) for γ i (z, 0) = [1 1] ⊤ , i = 1, . .…”

“…Since many applications require to take both the temporal and spatial system dynamics into account, it is also of interest to design networked controllers for MAS with distributed-parameter agents. Applications include industrial furnaces consisting of a network of heaters (see [5]), networks of HVAC systems in building climate control (see, e. g., [3] for distributed-parameter models and [29] for the corresponding MAS approach), networks of Lithium-Ion cells in battery management (see, e. g., [25] and [34] for distributed-parameter models) or consensus control in environmental applications (see [35]). Another interesting topic for applying distributed-Email address: joachim.deutscher@uni-ulm.de (Joachim Deutscher).…”

Robust Cooperative Output Regulation for Networks of Hyperbolic PIDE–ODE Systems

“…With Lemma 4 the controllability of the decoupled ODEs, i.e., of the pairs ( S, B i e ), i = 1, 2, is verified by evaluating the numerators N i (µ), i = 1, 2 at µ ∈ σ(S) = {0, 0}, i.e., N 1 (0) = 4.95, N 2 (0) = 2.21. Then, the simultaneous stabilization problem for (39a) is solved with the Matlab function are using the parameters κ 1 = κ 2 = 0.585, a 1 = 55, a 2 = 85 in (45). In particular, Re(…”