Patent ID: 12242234

DESCRIPTION

The embodiments of the present disclosure described herein are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the precise forms disclosed in the following detailed description. Rather, the embodiments are chosen and described so that others skilled in the art may appreciate and understand the principles and practices of the present disclosure.

The following embodiments and the accompanying drawings, which are incorporated into and form part of this disclosure, illustrate embodiments of the disclosure and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, certain illustrative aspects of the disclosure are described herein in connection with the following description and the annexed drawings. These aspects are indicative, however of, but a few of the various ways in which the principles of the disclosure can be employed and the subject disclosure is intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents. Other advantages and novel features of the disclosure will become apparent from the following detailed description of the disclosure when considered in conjunction with the drawings.

Explanation will be made below with reference to the figures referenced above for illustrative embodiments concerning the predictive building control loop according to the current disclosure.

A building control system contains a control loop500such as illustrated inFIG.5. The control loop contains a controller502that makes decisions based on sensor506data or some other feedback mechanism. The control decisions are then applied to the controlled system504. The controller502may be comprised of systems including but not limited to software, hardware, mechanical, and/or cloud based systems. The resulting effects on the system504are monitored by the feedback mechanism. An example of a building control loop500is: the sensor506data is comprised of an air temperature sensor506, the controller502is comprised of a thermostat, and the controlled system504is comprised of a furnace, fan, air conditioner, and building. In this case the furnace and air conditioner are sources, the fan is a transport, and the building is a sink. The controlled system504can be represented as inFIG.1; a system100comprised of sources102, sinks104, and transports106, possibly with other intermediate components108.

Another embodiment of a controlled system504is shown inFIG.4. InFIG.4the controlled system504is comprised of a heat exchanger402acting as a source102, a pump406as a transport106, and a storage tank404as a sink104.

One embodiment200inFIG.2shows how multiple sensors506may simultaneously feed data back to the controller502in a time series. This time series data may then be extended into the future by outputs of the simulation engine602.

The simulation engine602output may be compared with the actual sensor506data as shown inFIG.3. By using a heuristic tuning method300any difference between the simulation engine602output and the sensor506data can be used to tune the physical model604parameters to better represent the controlled system504. By constantly optimizing the model604, any uncertainty or inaccuracy in the model(s)604can be rectified.

FIG.6shows a controller502containing a simulation engine602. The simulation engine602inFIG.6may allow the building system controller502to predict the outcome of any available control action using its physical model604of the system504. Said predictions have many benefits, some of which are detailed below.

The physical model604is defined as any model of the controlled system504. The physical model604may be time variant. One form of time variance that may be included in the physical model604is comprised of heuristics. By employing heuristics, any control action may be evaluated, based on feedback from sensor506data or some other form of feedback, to evaluate whether the control action had the intended effect. If the control action did not have the intended effect, the physical model604may be changed to exert more effective control actions in the future.

FIG.7shows how a cost function702may be applied to the simulation engine602. Any and all resources may be given values in the cost function702. Said resources include but are not limited to: natural gas, gasoline, propane, home heating oil, coal, water, electricity, emissions, equipment longevity, heat, and/or time outside of a defined comfort zone. Any possible control actions may be assessed according to the cost function702in order to discover the optimal control action according to the cost function702. The cost function702may be time variant. The cost function702may be linked with factors including, but not limited to, monetary value of said resources, user preferences, and/or changes in the physical model604.

FIG.8shows how heuristics may be included in a model-based building control system800. Employing heuristics802with the physical model604allows the model604to be adaptive to issues such as time varying system elements, and/or inaccurate or incomplete starting datasets. By storing system reactions802to past control actions, the physical604model may be improved. Heuristics802may be implemented by comparing the data stream of the controlled system504to the output of the physical model-based simulation, as they respond to the same control stimuli. Any difference may be corrected by changing physical model604inputs to influence the physical model604outputs to match the data stream of the real world system504. The use of a heuristic802or regression802algorithm to tune physical model604parameters allows for substantial increases in system optimization, efficiency, and stability.

FIG.9shows how candidate control schemes, comprising a collection of control actions and corresponding valuation of the control actions, may be evaluated and compared, thus allowing for selection of the optimal control scheme among the candidates.

Although the disclosure has been explained in relation to certain embodiments, it is to be understood that many other possible modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.