Modern heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems commonly employ the concept of “Central All-Air System” utilising Air Handling Units (AHU’s) and Variable Air Volume (VAV) boxes for energy conservation. Thus, a good controller for the AHU’s is extremely desirable.
In this paper, a simulation model for a standard air-handling system is presented. A new controller based on the modern adaptive control algorithms has been developed where the input and actuating variables are incorporated into a system identification model which can predict the new system status based on past records and suggest the optimal control actions. Its performance has been shown to be superior to that of a conventional proportional-integral-differential (PID) controller in at least three aspects: adaptation to system change. response rate and energy conservation.
Keywords:
Adaptive control, system identification, HVAC control, system modelling
