M. Castilla

Técnicas de Control del Confort en Edificios

Most of the time, people perform their daily activities within buildings, making it necessary to monitor the conditions of comfort (thermal, visual and air quality) within them, trying to minimize energy consumption simultaneously. A review of techniques for comfort control in building is presented in this work. The paper also shows tesults obtained in the implementation of a hierarchical control system, which provides adequate thermal comfort inside the CDdI-CIESOL-ARFRISOL (Research Container Demonstrator – Centre for Solar Energy Research – Strategic Singular Project ARFRISOL) of the University of Almeria.

Comfort optimization in a solar energy research center

Abstract Most of the time, people usually do their daily activities inside a building. Thus, it is necessary to reach comfort conditions for the people. This paper presents a hierarchical control system which allows to obtain a high comfort level, optimizing the use of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems and actuators while minimizing energy consumption. Specifically, in this paper an analysis about the relation between comfort (thermal comfort, visual comfort and indoor-air quality) and different degrees of freedom to control inside a research center is done. The main objective is to obtain a cost function which allows to determine optimal conditions of humidity, temperature, illuminance and CO 2 concentration minimizing energy consumption.

Architecture to develop semi-virtual industrial laboratories for the interactive learning of process automation

This paper presents a hardware and software architecture for the development of educational laboratories, through the connection of real Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) to industrial virtual plants. In addition, to illustrate the use of the proposed architecture, two laboratories based on a bottling plant and the automatic irrigation process of a greenhouse using Modicon M340 PLCs of Schneider have been developed. Moreover, real feedback results from students of the Bachelor degree in agricultural engineering degrees are provided and analyzed.

Subharmonic content in Finite-State Model Predictive Current Control of IM

The interest in model based current control has been steadily growing during the last years. In particular, predictive techniques using a model and an exhaustive optimizer have been used, with many variations, for current control of IM using a VSI. In this paper it is shown that predictive controllers using the standard quadratic cost function seem to be prone to produce currents with subharmonic and non-integer harmonic content. This subject is rarely encountered in the predictive literature. The study shows that the harmonic content these controllers depend heavily on the precision of the predictive model. The relationship between model accuracy and harmonic distribution is illustrated using simulations of a three-phase induction machine. The results unveil complex relationships among factors that are analyzed providing guidelines that help in the practical design of predictive controllers.

Remote laboratory for a flexible manufacturing cell

Abstract This paper presents the development of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system for a Flexible Manufacturing Cell (FMC) with educational purposes. The developed system can be used in local and remote way, where the users can interact with the different elements that compose the FMC by means of an intuitive interface allowing changing setup parameters, sending orders, visualizing the state of the cell, etc. The full system is described remarking the advantages from an educational point of view.

A fuzzy controller for visual comfort inside a meeting-room

In general, human beings receive most part of information through eyesight. Therefore, light is an essential element which allows people to distinguish the shape, colour and perspective of the environment around them. Moreover, energy efficiency in buildings is a problem that is being widely analysed since energy consumption inside them represents approximately 40% of total world energy consumption. In addition, illumination supposes around 20% of total energy consumption in houses and between 40% and 70% in shops and offices. This paper presents a fuzzy logic controller which allows maintaining visual comfort inside a meeting-room through an efficient use of both natural and artificial lights. In order to probe the effectiveness of the proposed control system, suitable real results obtained in a meeting-room of the CIESOL bioclimatic building are included and commented.

Comfort in Buildings

This chapter reviews the basic concepts and terminology of comfort for building’s users. Comfort is described from three points of view: (i) thermal, (ii) visual and (iii) indoor air quality. The main comfort indices, which are widely accepted, are presented. Moreover, a comfort analysis that is used to evaluate the performance of the CDdI-CIESOL-ARFRISOL building without the use of any control strategy is performed.

Comfort Control Techniques for the Users of a Room

This chapter presents several control strategies developed aimed at obtaining an optimal comfort situation for the users of a building, minimising, at the same time, the energy consumption necessary to achieve this comfort situation. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the development and implementation of some control strategies which satisfy this objective. More specifically, hierarchical, linear model-based predictive control, nonlinear model predictive control and multivariable model predictive control strategies are presented. Furthermore, real results obtained from the application of the developed control strategies inside a characteristic room of the CDdI-CIESOL-ARFRISOL building are included and discussed.

A Case Study: The CDdI-CIESOL-ARFRISOL Building

This chapter is intended to give a complete description of the bioclimatic CDdI-CIESOL-ARFRISOL building which has been used to test the developed control systems. Therefore, in this chapter several bioclimatic approaches are presented as well as the computer application in charge of supervising and controlling the building.

Subsystems and Disturbance Models

Accurate models have been widely used in recent decades due to their importance for simulation, control and optimisation purposes. In this chapter, a study of different techniques which allow us to develop a dynamic model for the indoor climate of a typical office room is performed. Such models are a keystone to develop control strategies helping to obtain high comfort levels as well as to evaluate the energy performance in buildings. Furthermore, a systematic methodology valid to calibrate and validate first principles models is explained. The importance of the proposed methodology lies in that it can be extrapolated to any model of a similar system with a finite set of unknown parameters, and composed by series of separate processes. Finally, in order to validate the proposed models and the methodology followed to obtain and calibrate them, a comparison between simulations for a typical office room and real measured data obtained inside the CDdI-CIESOL-ARFRISOL bioclimatic building is presented.