Explicit MPC approach to PMV-based thermal comfort control

We show how to construct the explicit solution to a model predictive control (MPC) problem which maintains optimal thermal comfort, represented by the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) index, within required limits. Such an explicit solution allows the MPC policy to be implemented easily even in very simple building automation hardware. To cope with nonlinearity of the PMV index, we propose to linearize it while considering the linearization coefficients as time-varying parameters. Hence the explicit MPC controller is parameterized not only in state measurements, but also in coefficients of the linearization. Doing so mitigates the negative impact of linearization on control performance.