A cyber-physical system for building automation and control based on a distributed MPC with an efficient method for communication

• Published in: European journal of control Vol. 61; pp. 151 - 170
• Main Authors: Karbasi, Ali, Farhadi, Alireza
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2021; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Algorithms; Automation; Building automation; Building automation and control system; Building temperature regulation; Buildings; Collision avoidance; Control systems; Cyber-physical system; Cyber-physical systems; Data transfer (computers); Embedded systems; Energy consumption; Heat; Internet of Things; Large-scale system; Methods; Neighborhoods; Network latency; Office buildings; Optimization; Predictive control; Sensors; Subsystems; Temperature control; Ventilation; Wireless communications; Large-scale system; Cyber-physical system; Building temperature regulation; Building automation and control system
• ISSN: 0947-3580; 1435-5671
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ejcon.2021.04.008

This paper introduces a cyber-physical system for building automation and control that is developed based on a distributed model predictive control. The implemented distributed method significantly reduces computation overhead with respect to the centralized methods. However, continuous data transfer between subsystems, which are often far from each other, is required when using this method. Information transmission between subsystems is very often subject to the limitations of transmission bandwidth and/or short communication range resulting in significant communication overhead. This causes significant time latency between making measurements and applying control commands, which adversely affects the control performance. Therefore, the distributed method used in this paper implements a two-level communication architecture to reduce the communication overhead. In order to avoid collision in communication inside neighborhood using this method, the TDMA-OFDMA scheme is used for wireless communication between distributed devices. Under these assumptions, the communication overhead is calculated. Then, a novel algorithm for finding the size of neighborhoods resulting in the lowest time latency between making measurements and applying control commands is presented for a typical office building. Finally, the satisfactory performance of the proposed cyber-physical system for the temperature control of a typical office building in the presence of disturbance and model inaccuracy is illustrated using computer simulations.