Hybrid MPC approach to reconfiguration of building heating system

This paper describes the application of Hybrid Model Predictive Control (HMPC) to a building heating system. The hybrid model contains continuous variables corresponding to physical quantities as well as discrete variables serving as indices of a Linear Time Invariant (LTI) model in action. Two LTI models are considered, each describing different configurations of the building heating system. The application of HMPC allows efficient handling of disturbances by reconfiguration of the heating system. The proposed HMPC strategy improves comfort and reduces energy demands. An exact solution of HMPC is computationally demanding; therefore, three suboptimal solutions are suggested. These take into account specifics of the building heating system and significantly reduce the computational complexity. All presented strategies are compared by means of a numerical simulations using real weather data and a model of a real building.