@inproceedings{4fd40b722ed04c4f85d7029bae68a306,
title = "Scalable model predictive control for multi-evaporator vapor compression systems",
abstract = "Multi-evaporator vapor compression systems (ME-VCSs) are becoming widely used to meet the cooling needs for multiple thermal loads via a single system. As the number of evaporators increases, the size of these systems can make a centralized control approach impractical and computationally expensive; thus, motivating a decentralized control design. Linear gray-box modeling techniques show that ME-VCSs have a distinct underlying structure between the actuators and dynamic states known as a block arrow structure (BAS). This structure captures the high degree of coupling found in ME-VCSs, which can lead to poor decentralized control performance. This paper presents a partially decentralized model predictive control strategy which directly considers the coupling in the system when making control decisions by exploiting the BAS. The gray-box modeling approach and the decentralized nature of this BAS control strategy prove scalable to n-evaporator systems. Through simulated case studies, it is shown that this BAS control strategy can approximate the performance of a centralized control approach for ME-VCSs while significantly reducing computational costs.",
keywords = "Building and facility automation, Decentralized control, Predictive control for linear systems",
author = "Koeln, {Justin P.} and Alleyne, {Andrew G}",
year = "2014",
month = jan
day = "1",
doi = "10.1109/ACC.2014.6859148",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9781479932726",
series = "Proceedings of the American Control Conference",
publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",
pages = "392--397",
booktitle = "2014 American Control Conference, ACC 2014",
address = "United States",
note = "2014 American Control Conference, ACC 2014 ; Conference date: 04-06-2014 Through 06-06-2014",
}