A scenario-based predictive control approach to building HVAC management systems

We present a Stochastic Model Predictive Control (SMPC) algorithm that maintains predefined comfort levels in building Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems while minimizing the overall energy use. The strategy uses the knowledge of the statistics of the building occupancy and ambient conditions forecasts errors and determines the optimal control inputs by solving a scenario-based stochastic optimization problem. Peculiarities of this strategy are that it does not make assumptions on the distribution of the uncertain variables, and that it allows dynamical learning of these statistics from true data through the use of copulas, i.e., opportune probabilistic description of random vectors. The scheme, investigated on a prototypical student laboratory, shows good performance and computational tractability.