An integrated control system for optimizing the energy consumption and user comfort in buildings

In this paper, an HVAC system consisting of a thermal and ventilation subsystem and a lighting subsystem is analyzed in detail. The objective of this work is the development of an integrated control system to optimize energy consumption and user comfort. The entire control system is described in detail. The cross coupling, which links the thermal system with the lighting system, is specified. This allows a separation of the control algorithms according to the requirements. The core objective is the design of several intelligent thermal control algorithms. An algorithm using a fuzzy controller and an adapting power profile, a controller which uses the same algorithm as mentioned before but which optimizes the fuzzy controller parameters using genetic algorithms, and a generalized predictive controller (GPC) are presented. Different aspects of the control strategies, the diverse specifications of the algorithms and any restrictions concerning the implementation are listed. Simulation results of different controllers are presented and discussed.