Black-box identification of solar collector dynamics with variant time delay

• Published in: Control engineering practice Vol. 18; no. 10; pp. 1133 - 1146
• Main Authors: Brus, Linda, Zambrano, Darine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2010; Elsevier
• Subjects: Accumulators; Air conditioning. Ventilation; Applied sciences; Automatic control; Collectors; Computer science; control theory; systems; Control theory. Systems; Dynamical systems; Energy; Energy. Thermal use of fuels; Exact sciences and technology; Heating, air conditioning and ventilation; Identification; Information technology; Informationsteknik; Mathematical models; Mean square values; Modelling and identification; Natural energy; Nonlinear dynamics; Nonlinear systems; Photovoltaic conversion; Reglerteknik; Solar collectors; Solar energy; System theory; Systems engineering; Systemteknik; TECHNOLOGY; TEKNIKVETENSKAP; Time delay; Identification; Time delay; Nonlinear systems; Solar energy; Air conditioning; Solar collector; Non linear control; Air conditioning equipment; Black box; Delay system; Non linear system; Modeling; Mean square error; Time varying system; Non linear model; Delay time; System identification; Dynamic model
• ISSN: 0967-0661; 1873-6939; 1873-6939
• DOI: 10.1016/j.conengprac.2010.06.006

This paper treats black-box identification of the solar collectors at an air conditioning plant. The collectors have nonlinear dynamics and a flow variant time delay that complicates the use of conventional black-box identification methods. A method for compensation of such flow variant time delays is proposed. Thereafter a black-box method for nonlinear systems without time delays can be applied. The obtained nonlinear model describes the collector dynamics well, and has a mean square of the prediction error of the output that is approximately 10 times smaller than that obtained for the best linear model achieved by the same method.