Online adaptive control, diagnostics and intelligent operation of multizone heating ventilating and air conditioning systems

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Heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in modern buildings consist of a large number of interconnected sub-systems, components and controllers to operate them. In such large systems it is very difficult for the operators to optimize the system operation by trial and error or locate faulty components manually. Inefficient operation coupled with faulty components increase energy consumption, shorten equipment life, and degrade indoor environment in buildings. Since HVAC systems consume nearly one half of total energy used in modern buildings, it is important to develop online strategies for energy optimal operation and diagnosis in order to minimize operating costs.Monitoring and control of HVAC systems in modern buildings is currently handled by the state-of-the-art energy management control (EMC) systems. However, most EMC strategies consist of simple heuristic control functions for executing time-of-day building operation schedules. Similarly the diagnostic functions are limited to different alarm levels which are intended for alerting operators to initiate corrective action. Since alarms alone are not enough to detect and isolate component or operation faults. With this as the motivation, a comprehensive research program is proposed to develop online adaptive and intelligent strategies for system operation, control and diagnostics. The  overall objective is to integrate operation, control and diagnostics functions to achieve improved functionality and operational efficiency of overall HVAC system. Experiments will be conducted to verify the developed algorithms in a real building EMC system platform.The novelty of the proposed research program stems from the fact that the methodology is based on intelligent control techniques and the developed algorithms are expected to contribute to significant reduction in energy consumption and improved operational efficiency of overall HVAC system.