Achieving Quality and Coherent Configuration and Operations

这笔赠款为使用智能和安全建筑(例如，办公室、工厂、商场、医院、学校和公寓)作为背景的复杂系统的配置和运行提供资金。这个问题是重要但困难的，在拯救生命、保护财产、创造经济价值和降低成本方面具有深远的社会影响。以建筑交通(电梯和楼梯)为问题背景，我们的目标是在考虑建筑交通与暖通空调的相互作用的同时，为模式(正常和紧急)和解决方案(粗略和详细)轴上的各种组合建立跨模型、解决方案和阶段的连贯方法。其核心思想是协同整合计算机科学和优化。首先，开发具有足够表现力和易于形式化处理的形式化语义，以分析和验证建筑组合优化模型。然后将在模型、解决方案和阶段之间创建具有一致性保证的分布式模型。为了解决这个问题，将建立一个分解和协调的方法。它将协同集成一种基于代理优化的基于价格的新协调方案和约束编程技术，以融合选定的求解器片段。然后，将使用形式语义来组合模型、方法和阶段，以实现跨解决方案和模式的无缝且连贯的方法。结果将在虚拟试验台上进行验证。如果成功，这项研究的结果将为建筑设计师、操作员和第一响应者提供一个系统的框架和一套有价值的方法，以实现建筑的连贯和优化配置和运营。它们还将用于支持对下一代政策、标准和程序的调查。该结果还可以推广到其他复杂系统的配置和运行，如安全监控、车辆和飞机。该研究将从不同的角度为计算机科学与优化的协同融合开辟新的方向，解决多分辨率、多模式建模与优化的基本问题。总体目标是建立一个框架，在吸引和教育学生的同时，协调复杂系统的配置和运行，特别是实现经济上可持续的智能和安全建筑。

This grant provides funding for the configuration and operation of complex systems using intelligent and secure buildings (e.g., offices, factories, malls, hospitals, schools, and apartments) as the background. The problem is important but difficult, and has profound societal impact such as in saving lives, preserving property, generating economic value, and reducing costs. With building traffic (elevators and stairs) as the problem context, our goal is to establish methodologies that are coherent across models, solutions, and phases for various combinations along the mode (normal and emergency) and resolution (coarse and detailed) axes while considering the interactions of building traffic with HVAC. The key idea is to synergistically integrate computer science and optimization. First, formal semantics that is sufficiently expressive and amenable to formal treatment will be developed to analyze and validate composite optimization models for buildings. Distributed models will then be created with coherency guarantees among models, solutions, and phases. To solve the problem, a decomposition and coordination approach will be established. It will synergistically integrate a novel price-based coordination scheme based on surrogate optimization with constraint programming techniques to fuse selected solver fragments. Formal semantics will then be used to combine models, methods, and phases for a seamless and coherent approach across resolutions and modes. The results will be validated on a virtual test bed. If successful, the results of this research will provide a systematic framework and a valuable set of methods for building designers, operators, and first responders for the coherent and optimized configuration and operation of buildings. They will also be used to support the investigation of next generation policies, standards, and procedures. The results can also be extended for the configuration and operation of other complex systems such as security monitoring, vehicles, and aircraft. From a different perspective, the research will open up a new direction for the synergistic integration of computer science and optimization to address the fundamental issues of multi-resolution and multi-mode modeling and optimization. The overall goal is to establish a framework toward coherent configuration and operation of complex systems while attracting and educating students in general, and to achieve economically sustainable intelligent and secure buildings in particular.