ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of the Franklin Institute 341 (2004) 543567

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfranklin

Robust decentralized control of HVAC systems

using H 1-performance measures
S.A.K. Al-Assadia,, R.V. Patelb, M. Zaheer-uddinc,
M.S. Vermad, J. Breitingera
a
IAV Automotive Engineering Inc., 4110 Varsity Dr., Ann Arbor, MI 48108, USA
b
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western Ontario University, Canada
c
Centre for Building Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada H3G 1M8
d
Department of Electrical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Canada H3A 2A7

Abstract

In this paper, we present the results of a study on the use of H 1 constraints in an

optimization technique for the design of robust decentralized output feedback control of a
heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system. Robust stability and performance
specications are used to achieve temperature control in multi-zone HVAC system in the
presence of disturbances and model uncertainties and under constraints on control input
energy. The resulting xed-gain decentralized output feedback controller, which is based on a
linear model, is then implemented via simulation on a full bilinear model of the HVAC system.
Comparison of these results with those based on constrained linear-quadratic optimal
regulator design show signicantly superior performance of the H 1 -based design.
r 2004 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: HVAC systems; Multi-zone building; Temperature control; Robust decentralized controllers;
H 1 -performance specications; Constrained optimization

Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-514-626-1630.

E-mail address: salem.al-assadi@iavinc.com (S.A.K. Al-Assadi).

0016-0032/$30.00 r 2004 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfranklin.2004.06.001
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1. Introduction

An important consideration in dynamic modeling and control design of heating,

ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems is the notion of part-load operating
performance. The main reason for this stems from the fact that when HVAC systems
are installed in a given building, they are sized for meeting the highest load the system
would experience in a heating season. While, this may be a prime consideration, it also
imposes severe penalty on the day-to-day operating performance of the HVAC
system. For example, it is well known that the efciency of HVAC systems is at its
maximum at full-load and decreases signicantly at part-load for a bulk of the heating
season, it becomes evident that any inaccuracies in the modeling of part-load
performance characteristics could adversely affect the subsequent controller design.
The general notion of part-load performance characteristics of an HVAC system
encompasses a wide range of operating parameters such as heat-transfer coefcients,
zone heat loss rates, heat-exchanger effectiveness, thermal time constants and many
energy efciency parameters. These parameters are difcult to model and are known
only approximately. Therefore, in the presence of uncertainties in modeling of such
parameters, it becomes doubly necessary to design robust controllers for efcient
operation of HVAC systems. Given the fact that on the one hand, the parameters of
HVAC systems change during their operation and on the other hand, the system
outputs are affected by multiple disturbances acting on the HVAC systems, it seems
intuitively plausible that the minimization of an H 1 criterion as a controller design
technique which provides robust stability against uncertainties in system parameters,
disturbance rejection may indeed be well suited for HVAC systems. In this paper, we
seek to answer systematically whether H 1 performance measures improve the
regulation properties of an HVAC control system, and if so what improvements can
be achieved. Furthermore, we are interested in the application of H 1 controller
design techniques in the frame work of decentralized control since in a previous
study by Zaheer-uddin et al. [1], we have shown that decentralized controllers are
good candidates for HVAC systems. To this end, we begin with the HVAC system
shown in Fig. 1. The HVAC system shown is an interconnection of subsystems such
as a boiler, heat pumps (one for each zone) and the environmental zones. In response
to a demand for heating from the environmental zones, the boiler supplies hot water
to the heat pumps. This source energy is elevated in temperature in the heat pumps
and delivered to the zones via circulating fans, ductwork and a diffuser arrangement.
The HVAC system shown in Fig. 1 has three stations (viz. station 1: boiler, station 2:
zone-1, and station 3: zone-2). The boiler temperature T b and the zone temperatures
T z1 and T z2 are the outputs of the three respective stations. These outputs must be
made to track some desired set-points which are known a priori. To achieve this
regulation task, we can use (i) the station 1 input u1 t n3 to control the output
y1 t; (ii) the station 2 input u2 t n1 n4 T to control the output y2 t, and (iii) the
station3 input u3 t n2 n5 T to control the output y3 t. In a recent paper by
Zaheer-uddin et al. [1], a robust decentralized controller was designed for the HVAC
system by using a parameter optimization technique to solve a constrained
servomechanism problem.
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Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the HVAC system.

Several decentralized controller parameterizations based on solving H 2 =H 1

theory have been developed recently e.g. see [24]. However, they do not solve the
general problem and also result in higher-order stabilizing controllers. Our work
differs from this in that we imbed the problem of constrained optimization of an H 1
criterion in a robust servomechanism formulation to obtain a constrained parameter
optimization problem. The latter can be solved using sequential quadratic
programming to yield feedback gain matrices with the specied decentralized
structure.
The paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, a linearized model of the HVAC
system is given. A description of the complete bilinear analytical model is given in [1].
This section also includes, the formulation of the decentralized H 1 -constrained
robust servomechanism problem in which the controller is robust in the sense of
Davison [5], i.e. rejection of specied disturbances and asymptotic tracking of given
reference signals take place in the presence of parameter variations and model
uncertainties which do not make the closed-loop system unstable. In Section 3, the
design of the decentralized controller based on H 1 -constrained optimization is
presented. Simulation results of the implementation of the resulting decentralized
robust controller on the bilinear model of the HVAC system are given in Section 4. A
comparison with the robust controller designed by constrained minimization of a
linear quadratic performance index given in [1] is also presented.
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2. System description and problem formulation

A seventh-order bilinear model of the HVAC system shown in Fig. 1 was

developed (see Appendix A.1).
The basic feature of the model equations (A.1A.9) is that it describes the energy
ows as products of heat loss rates and temperature differences. As pointed out in
Section 1, the heat loss parameters vary as the HVAC systems experience uctuating
loads due to changes in external disturbances during a typical day operation. For
example, the typical parameters which could change during system operation include
zone heat loss rates az , heat pump heat loss coefcients ah ; al , boiler ue loss
coefcient a and the heat exchanger effectiveness z. Thus, modeling errors occur not
only due to inaccurate system dynamics but also due to the effect of external
disturbances on the system parameters. Since the latter effect are difcult to model,
we believe that such cross-sensitivity uncertainties (modeling errors) could be best
accommodated in the H 1 -based performance measures.
The model equations were linearized about an operating point (T0 t, m0 t). The
state-space description of the linearized model is expressed in the form
_ ADxt BDut EDwt;
Dxt 2:1a

Dyt CDxt 2:1b

with
Dx DT b DT l1 DT h1 DT z1 DT l2 DT h2 DT z2 T ; 2:2a

Du Dn3 Dn1 Dn4 Dn2 Dn5 T 2:2b

and
Dw DT e DT p T : 2:2c
Here the Ds represent small variations of the states (temperatures), control inputs
(energy inputs and mass ow rates), and the external disturbances (step changes in
ambient temperatures) about the operating point. The matrices A,B,C, and E
together with the operating point and the design parameters of the HVAC system are
given in Appendix A.2 and A.3, respectively. The variations in the boiler
temperature DT b , and the zone temperatures DT z1 and DT z2 are the system outputs
which are to be regulated against any step changes in set-points or external
disturbances. The model has ve input variables; n1 (supply air to zone-1), n2 (supply
air to zone-2), n3 (fuel ring rate), n4 (input energy to zone-1) and n5 (input energy to
heat pump-2).
A comparison of the operating performance of the actual HVAC system (bilinear
model) with the linearized model is shown in Figs. 2ac. The intent of the
comparison is to see how both models predict the system outputs given the following
step changes in the operating conditions that correspond to a somewhat colder day.
On this day, it was assumed that the outdoor temperature T po changes to 4 C such
that the new outdoor temperature T p is 6 C and there is a 1 C step change in
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Fig. 2. (ac) Comparison of the open-loop responses for the linear and bilinear system to 1 C step
change in the operating point and DT e 1 C, DT P 4 C in the external disturbances.
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T eo . Furthermore, we also assumed a 1 C step change in the initial temperatures of

T z1 , T z2 and T b from the operating point. The resulting responses are depicted in
Figs. 2ac. From these gures, we can draw some important observations: (i) The
temperature-response curves show that the system outputs need to be regulated to
reach the setpoint as fast as possible; (ii) the external disturbances inuence the zone
temperatures much more strongly (almost three times) than the boiler temperature;
and (iii) over the entire operating range both linear and nonlinear model predictions
show good matching. From the open-loop responses, we also note that the zones-1
and 2 temperatures are falling because of a decrease in outdoor temperature. In
order to bring them back to their respective setpoints, one or all of the following
control actions can be taken: (i) The mass ow rate of supply air to zone-1 can be
increased by increasing via n1 control, (ii) the input energy to the compressor n4 can
be increased to increase the supply air temperature, and (iii) the temperature of the
source water from the boiler can be increased by increasing the fuel ring rate via the
burner control n3 . A similar set of control actions n2 ; n5 can be taken in response to
demand for heat from zone-2.
The above problem was solved by Zaheer-uddin et al. [1] using centralized as well
as decentralized robust output feedback controllers based on constrained optimiza-
tion of quadratic performance criteria for linear and nonlinear models. The results
show that the system performance with decentralized control is very close to the
performance with centralized control. It is also shown that the decentralized
requirement does not force the HVAC system to have xed modes [6]. In the next
section, we consider the use of H 1 performance measures to design a robust
decentralized output feedback controller for the HVAC system. These performance
measures have been used for two main reasons: (i) we believe that greater
improvement in robustness of the dynamic performance can be achieved; (ii) the
method allows greater control on the input energy for compensating for any
bounded variations in the external disturbances and/or model parameters. The
results we have obtained show a signicant improvement over those obtained by
minimizing a quadratic performance criterion.

3. Decentralized H 1 -constrained robust servomechanism problem

The standard decentralized linearized HVAC model is of the form

X
N
_ ADxt
Dxt Bi Dui t EDwt; 3:1a
i1

Dyi t C i Dxt; i 1; 2; . . . ; N 3:1b

with
Dei t Dyi t  DyRi t; 3:1c
where Dxt 2 Rn is the state vector, Dwt 2 Rq^ is the vector of constant
(unmeasurable) disturbances acting on the system, N 3 is the number of
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stations in the decentralized system, and for Station i, Dui t 2 Rmi is the control
input vector, Dyi t 2 Rl i is the measurable output vector and DyRi t 2 Rl i is the
reference signal (set-point) vector. h i h i
Let B B1 . . . BN , C T C T1 . . . C TN , Du1 Dn3 , Du2 Dn
Dn4
1 , Du Dn2
3 Dn5
and
let DyR tT DyR1 tT . . . DyRN tT  0, i.e., we consider a regulation problem for
the linearized model.
In order to reject a class of disturbances Dwt and track reference signals DyRi t
acting on the system (3.1), we use a general servocompensator [7,8] given by
Dx_ i t Oi Dxi t Yi Dei t; 3:2
where
Oi 2 Rql i ql i block diagOi ; Oi ; . . . ; Oi 
and
Yi 2 Rql i l i block diagYi ; Yi ; . . . ; Yi 
with q, Yi and Oi completely determined by the disturbances and reference signals
acting on the system [9] e.g., for constant disturbances and reference signals, q 1,
Oi 0, Yi 1. Thus the augmented decentralized system is
X
N
_^ AD
Dxt ^ xt
^ B^ i Dui t EDwt
^ F^ DyR t; 3:3a
i1
 
Dyi t
D^yi t C^ i Dxt
^ 3:3b
Dxi t
and the output to be regulated is
D^zi t C i Dxt Dyi t; i 1; . . . ; N; 3:3c
where
" # " # " #
Dxt A 0 Bi
^
Dxt ; A^ ; B^ i ;
Dxt Y C O 0
" # " # " #
E 0 Ci 0
E^ ; F^ and C^ i
0 Y 0 Ip

with O block diagO1 ; . . . ; ON 
and Y block diagY1 ; . . . ; YN .


For the robust decentralized servomechanism problem given by (3.3), the task is to
nd N local controllers with inputs D^yi t, and outputs Dui t; i 1; . . . ; N, so that
(i) the resulting closed-loop system is asymptotically stable, (ii) the outputs D^zi t
asymptotically track the reference signals for all constant disturbances and set-
points, and (iii) for all perturbations in the parameters of the system which do not
cause instability in the closed-loop system, property (ii) still holds.
If we dene a set K of block diagonal matrices:
K fK j K blockdiagK 1 ; . . . ; K N ; K i 2 Rmi l i g 3:4
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then the set of decentralized xed modes (d.f.m.s) of (3.1) with respect to K is
dened [6,10] as
\
LA; Bi ; C i ; K sA BKC; 3:5
K2K

where s denotes the set of eigenvalues of the matrix .

For the application considered in this paper, mi Xl i ; i 1; . . . ; N, all the outputs
to be regulated are measurable and the disturbances to be regulated and the reference
signals to be tracked are constant. Then, as shown by Davison [5], a solution to the
robust decentralized servomechanism problem for (3.3) exists if and only if the
following conditions hold: (i) the triple C; A; B has no unstable d.f.m.s, (ii) the
triple C; A; B has no transmission zeros at the origin.
Condition (i) was veried by using the method developed by Patel and Misra [11].
As far as condition (ii) is concerned, computation of the transmission zeros of
C; A; B given by Emami-Naeini and Van Dooren [12] indicated that the system has
no transmission zeros at the origin. Therefore, we conclude that a solution to the
robust decentralized servomechanism problem for (3.3) exists. The decentralized
control law has the structure given by
 
Dei t
Dui t Ki ; i 1; . . . ; N; 3:6
Dxi t

where Ki K 1
i K 2
i .
The resulting decentralized control inputs, ui t ui0 t Dui t; i 1; 2; 3, are
the actual control inputs nk t, to the plant, k 1; . . . ; 5. The control inputs nk t are
normalized with respect to their maximum capacities, and vary between 0 and 1.
Since any violation of this constraint is not realistic, we seek a set of Ki by optimizing
an H 1 performance criterion. By incorporating performance specications and
robust stability within an H 1 optimization criterion, robust performance of the
HVAC system can be achieved. The specications of the H 1 -based performance
measures are discussed next.

3.1. Performance specifications

As shown in the open-loop responses (Figs. 2ac), the external disturbance T p

greatly inuences the zone temperatures. In order to minimize this effect and shape
the output responses, we rst dene the decentralized sensitivity function SP; Ki
which represents the closed-loop transfer function from the input disturbance Dwt
to the regulated output D^zi t. Let us consider the case where the disturbance Dwt
acts on the HVAC system represented by a scalar variable Dwt which belongs to
the set
fDw: Dw W 1 d d 2 H 2 ; kdk2 p1g

for some weighting function W 1 s satisfying W 1 s, W 1 1 s 2 H 1 . If the

regulated outputs D^zi t is measured by its H 2 norm, then the performance criterion
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considered is
supfkW 1 Sdk2 : kdk2 p1g  kW 1 Sk1 : 3:7
It is desired to minimize kW 1 Sk1 over the set of all constant decentralized
stabilizing controllers Ki . This is also related to shaping the frequency response
characteristic of the decentralized sensitivity Ss via an appropriate choice of the
weighting function W 1 s. For example, a specication of the form
jSjojojW 1 joj1 for all o 2 R
is equivalent to the H 1 norm specication kW 1 Sk1 o1.

3.2. Robust stability

Modeling error (as discussed in Section 2) in the system may be represented in the
~ I dsW 2 sPs. Here, Ps represents the transfer function matrix
form Ps
of the nominal HVAC linearized model, W 2 s and ds are the parametrization
transfer function matrices of the uncertainty in the model. ds is a variable, stable
transfer function matrix satisfying kdk1 p1. In this study the uncertainty weighting
function W 2 s is assumed to be a known diagonal matrix with equal constant gains
s2 in the diagonal entries. This uncertainty modeling accounts for the phase
uncertainty and acts as a scaling factor on the magnitude of the perturbations.
Robust stability is achieved by putting an H 1 -norm constraint on the transfer
function T from the disturbance Dwt to the control input Dui t, i.e.
kW 2 Tk1 o1; 3:8
where, T represents the decentralized complementary sensitivity function to be
minimized. This minimization corresponds to reducing the energy in the control
input and also to improving the robustness of the system against any multiplicative
perturbations in the HVAC model.

3.3. Robust performance

The general notion of robust performance pertains to achieving an acceptable level

of performance in the presence of disturbances and system uncertainty. For the
HVAC temperature control system, we achieve robust performance by combining
the decentralized performance specication condition kW 1 Sk1 o1 with the
decentralized robust stability condition kW 2 Tk1 o1. Therefore, we consider the
optimization problem
 
W 1 S
Min JKi 3:9a
W 2 T 1
subject to constraints on the stability of the resulting closed-loop system
Relcj o0 j 1; . . . ; n pq; 3:9b
where lcj ; j 1; . . . ; n pq, are the poles of the linear closed-loop system.
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In order to ensure that the controller Ki designed based on the linear model (3.1)
results in a stable bilinear closed-loop system and the input energy of the system does
not exceed its maximum capacity, we introduce additional constraints
0pnk tp1; k 1; . . . ; 5 3:9c
and
x0j t  1:5oxj tpx0j t 1:5; j 1; . . . ; 7 3:9d
where x0 t T b0 T l10 T h10 T z10 T l20 T h20 T z20 T are the temperatures at the
operating point, nk t; k 1; . . . ; 5, are the closed-loop control inputs and xj t are
the actual states of HVAC system (A.1A.9). Note that the nk s are normalized with
respect to their maximum capacities so that they vary between 0 and 1. The
constraint (3.9d) ensures that the actual system states remain bounded and close to
the operating point x0 t.
In order to normalize the H 1 -norm criterion given in Eq. (3.9a) to be less than 1,
we need to choose suitable weighting functions W 1 s and W 2 s.
Remark 1. In the standard H 1 optimization problem, the weighting functions are
used to capture the structure of the disturbances and plant uncertainty. Thus, the
weighting functions inuence the structure of the controller. In this paper, we imbed
the problem of constraint optimization of an H 1 criterion in robust servomechan-
ism formulation. The servocompensator captures the characteristics of the
disturbance and reference signals [5] and is embedded in the decentralized control
law (3.6) as a xed part. The remaining part consists of a constant gain Ki designed
via H 1 optimization problem with additional constraints. For this optimization
problem, a choice of constant weighting functions W 1 s and W 2 s is considered to
be suitable.
Remark 2. Another difference from the standard H 1 optimization problem is that
there is no direct transmission from Dwt to Dui t and D^zi t in the augmented
decentralized system (3.3). Consequently, many of the currently available computing
methods for H 1 design (such as the MATLAB mAnalysis and Synthesis Toolbox
given by Balas et al. [13]) cannot be used directly for solving this constrained H 1
optimization problem.
Remark 3. It should be mentioned that the technique used in this paper for designing
controllers for HVAC systems differs from the conventional H 1 methods, and is
considered advantageous for the following reasons: (i) Use of conventional H 1
design for this problem would give rise to a feedback controller of order equal to the
order of the HVAC system plus the order of the servocompensator; our technique,
on the other hand employs a servocompensator and a constant gain feedback
controller. This feature is considered to be of signicance from the viewpoint of
practical applications. (ii) The well posedness requirements for our problem, which
guarantee the existence of a solution, are signicantly weaker than those required in
the so called standard H 1 design methods , e.g. see [13]. This makes it easier for us
to solve the optimization problem. No additional weighting functions are needed to
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remove the features of our model mentioned in Remark 2. (iii) A nonlinear

programming technique is used in this application to solve the constrained H 1
optimization problem. This enables us to obtain constant gain controllers. (iv) The
use of a nonlinear programming technique enables us to combine both frequency
and time-domain performance specications. We are able to maintain constraints on
the control input energy when the controller is implemented on the linear model or
the nonlinear model of the HVAC system. (v) The servocompensator in our
framework plays a role similar to that of the weighting functions in standard H 1
design, as it captures the characteristics of disturbance and reference signals. Hence,
in the H 1 optimization problem (3.9), the use of constant weighting functions is
deemed appropriate, as the dynamical part of the weighting functions is considered
to be captured by the servocompensator.
The parameter optimization for the above problem was carried out using an
algorithm given in the MATLAB Optimization Toolbox [14] for semi-innite
constraints. This uses cubic and quadratic interpolation techniques to estimate the
peak values in the semi-innite constraints. The computation of the H 1 -norm of the
transfer function matrix was carried out using the algorithm provided in the
MATLAB mAnalysis and Synthesis Toolbox [13]. We obtained the following
values for the decentralized output feedback controller KS by minimizing the
criterion (3.7), and KS;T by minimizing the criterion in Eq. (3.9a):
2 3
0:5000 0:0 0:0 1:2454 0:0 0:0
6 7
6 0:0 0:40649 0:0 0:0 0:77962 0:0 7
6 7
KS 66 0:0 0:43223 0:0 0:0 0:56581 0:0 77;
6 7
4 0:0 0:0 0:37613 0:0 0:0 0:69616 5
0:0 0:0 0:5000 0:0 0:0 1:0477
2 3
0:4976 0:0 0:0 1:8815 0:0 0:0
6 7
6 0:0 0:27990 0:0 0:0 0:5773 0:0 7
6 7
KS;T 6
6 0:0 0:4974 0:0 0:0 0:7918 0:0 7:
7
6 7
4 0:0 0:0 0:5293 0:0 0:0 0:7591 5
0:0 0:0 0:4997 0:0 0:0 1:0838

4. Simulation results

4.1. Closed-loop system

The output responses of the bilinear closed-loop decentralized HVAC control

system obtained by minimizing: a quadratic performance cost function [1], and the
H 1 -norm of the sensitivity function (3.7) are shown in Figs. 3ac. It may be noted
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from Fig. 3a that the minimization of the H 1 criterion results in faster response.
Consequently, the boiler temperature reaches the setpoint more quickly. Likewise
Figs. 3b and c show that the output responses obtained with the H 1 criterion are in
general better than those obtained with the quadratic performance criterion.
The control input proles corresponding to the outputs (Figs. 3ac) are shown in
Figs. 4ae. Note that the boiler input energy n3 remains the same (Fig. 4c), but
better temperature responses (Fig. 3a) are achieved. Furthermore, heat pump-1
energy is minimized (Fig. 4d) at the expense of slightly higher air ow rate to zone-1
n1 which is intuitively a smart strategy because running the heat pump with
higher capacity is more expensive than running the fan at higher speed to deliver
higher air ow rate. Since, both options theoretically yield the same heat ow rate to
offset the effect of the disturbance on zone-1, it is indeed worth noting that the
H 1 -based performance measure chose the cost effective alternative. This result
is of signicant economic benet towards achieving energy conservation through
better controller design. Overall, it appears that the output regulation with
the H 1 criterion is better than that obtained with the quadratic performance
criterion.
Next, we compare the results obtained by minimization of the H 1 -norm in Eq.
(3.7), i.e. the sensitivity function only, with the H 1 -norm in Eq. (3.9a), i.e.
combination of the sensitivity and complementary sensitivity functions. The output
responses are shown in Figs. 5ac. For the problem considered here, it appears that
the use of Eq. (3.9a) results in a signicant improvement in the boiler temperature
response (Fig. 5a) and a slight improvement in the zone temperature responses (Figs.
5b and c). The corresponding control input proles are shown in Figs. 6ae. Note
that the addition of energy input in minimizing the H 1 -norm in fact saves some
energy in running the fan n1 (Fig. 6a). While holding the other energy inputs at the
same level and giving better output temperature regulation.
The closed-loop responses presented thus far show the minimization of the H 1 -
norm sensitivity function not only achieves faster response but minimizes control
input energy as well. On the other hand, a slight further improvement in output
responses is also achieved at about the same level of energy input by minimizing
the H 1 -norm of the mixed sensitivity function. For the HVAC system considered
in this paper, the above results corroborate the fact that external disturbances
affect the system output through certain states which indirectly inuence the
control energy inputs. Thus, by minimizing the disturbance-to-output sensitivity
function, a reduction in input energy is achieved as well. The complementary
sensitivity function plays a secondary role in this problem because of the fact that
there is no direct transmission from the disturbance-to-input energy in the bilinear
model.

4.2. Robustness

To examine the robustness of the decentralized controller to parameter variations,

we considered a case with 25% decrease in the heat exchanger coefcient z and a
25% increase in the boiler ue loss coefcient a. We expect that the next effect of
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Fig. 3. (ac) Comparison of the closed-loop responses (quadratic and H 1 solutions) of the decentralized
system acted upon by the same magnitude of step changes and disturbances as in Figs. 2ac.
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Fig. 4. (ae) Control input proles corresponding to the outputs shown in Figs. 3ac.

these changes is to slow down the output responses. The responses of the closed-loop
system are depicted in Figs. 7ac for the decentralized feedback controller designs
based on optimization of the H 1 -norm criterion of the sensitivity function, and
those obtained by optimization of the quadratic criterion [1], subject to the same
initial step changes and disturbances as those used earlier. The responses obtained
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Fig. 5. (ac) Comparison of the output responses (H 1 solutions) of the decentralized system.
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Fig. 6. (ae) Control input proles corresponding to the outputs shown in Figs. 5ac.

from both controller design methods (dashed linessensitivity function minimiza-

tion; solid linesquadratic cost function minimization) are shown in the gures.
Several interesting observations can be made from these results: (i) We note that
although both responses are slow (compared to Figs. 3ac) due to the chosen
variations in the parameters of the system, nevertheless, the H 1 -sensitivity
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Fig. 7. (ac) Comparison of the output responses (quadratic and H 1 solutions) of the decentralized
system (with 25% changes in the heat exchanger and boiler ue loss coefcients) acted upon by the same
magnitude of step changes and disturbances as in Figs. 2ac.
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Fig. 8. (ae) Control input proles corresponding to the outputs shown in Figs. 7ac.

minimization results in signicantly faster responses (Figs. 7ac) compared to the

quadratic solution. (ii) In the case of the H 1 -solution the improvement in output
responses is accompanied by a signicant reduction in input energy. In other words,
much less energy is used to run the boiler (Fig. 8c, n3 ), the heat pump-1 (Fig. 8d, n4 )
and the fan for zone-1 (Fig. 8a, n1 ). (iii) From Fig. 8c, we note that following a step
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change in the external disturbance, the quadratic controller reacts slowly i.e. the
control input n3 is smaller (to begin with) compared to that for the H 1 -based
controller. (iv) The H 1 -based performance measure improves the robustness
properties of the controller. (v) All the inputs are smooth and within bounds,
satisfying the capacity constraints of the physical system.
Figs. 9ac show the improvement in the output responses obtained using the H 1 -
based controller design that incorporates a combination of sensitivity and
complementary sensitivity functions (solid-lines) as compared to that which uses
only the sensitivity function (dashed-lines).

4.3. 24-h System Operation

A realistic way of testing the HVAC systems is to operate them over a 24-h
period corresponding to a typical day. To this end, we are interested in simulating
the 24-h operation of the bilinear HVAC system using the designed controllers.
For this purpose, we consider an outdoor temperature prole for a typical day in
March in Montreal as shown in Fig. 10. We approximate this prole by step
functions as shown in the gure by assuming that such step changes are known a
priori.
Simulations showing the results of implementing on the bilinear system, the
decentralized controllers obtained by optimizing the H 1 norm of the mixed
sensitivity function (3.9a) and the quadratic cost function given in [1] for this day are
shown in Figs. 11ac. The boiler and zone temperature responses are held close to
the setpoints throughout the day and are closer for the H 1 solution. The maximum
variations in the outputs from their set-points are within 0:2 C for the quadratic
method and 0:1 C for the H 1 method. It is possible to improve the output
regulation by updating the system model at several points along the outdoor
temperature prole (Fig. 10) and by using techniques such as gain scheduling e.g. see
[15]. However, here we have taken an alternate approach in the design of the
decentralized controller using a 24-h time constrained optimization scheme. The
optimization focuses on a 24-h forecasted outdoor temperature prole which is
assumed to be available ahead of time. This appears to be a reasonable approach
because, in practice, HVAC systems are operated based on past history of the load
patterns and future estimates or forecasts of the 24-h load and building occupancy
schedule.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, we imbed the problem of constrained optimization of an H 1

criterion in a robust servomechanism formulation to obtain a constrained parameter
optimization problem. The HVAC design application considered here has
demonstrated the advantages of using H 1 -constrained optimization synthesis in
constructing robust decentralized output feedback controllers to meet both stability
and performance specication requirements. Comparing with a constrained
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Fig. 9. (ac) Comparison of the output responses (H 1 solutions) of the decentralized system (with 25%
changes in the heat exchanger and boiler ue loss coefcients) acted upon by the same magnitude of step
changes and disturbances as in Figs. 2ac.
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Fig. 10. A typical day prole of outdoor air temperature with step function approximation.

Fig. 11. Comparison of the typical daily regulation of boiler and zone temperatures with the decentralized
controller (quadratic and H 1 solutions).
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quadratic cost optimization approach for linear and bilinear models of the HVAC
system given by Zaheer-uddin et al. [1]. We conclude that the H 1 constrained
optimization design is superior not only in terms of achievability of stability and
disturbance attenuation requirements, but also in terms of improvement robustness
against model uncertainties. The goal in Zaheer-uddin et al. [1], as in the present case
was to achieve good regulation subject to robustness constraints on stability and
control input energy capacities. It should be noted that, the approach used in this
paper involves designing a controller from a frequency domain as well as time
domain viewpoint where as in Zaheer-uddin et al. [1] a time-domain viewpoint was
only used.

Appendix A

A.1. Bilinear model of HVAC system

cb T_ b n3 n3 max 1  aT b =T bmax  mb cpw T b  T l1

 mb cpw T b  T l2  ab T b  T e ; (A.1)

cl1 T_ l1 n4 n4 max P1  1 mb cpw T b  T l1  al1 T l1  T e ; A:2

ch1 T_ h1 n4 n4 max P1  n1 n1 max zT h1  T z1  ah1 T h1  T e ; A:3

cz1 T_ z1 n1 n1 max z1 T h1  T z1  az1 T z1  T p  az12 T z1  T z2 ; A:4

cl2 T_ l2 n5 n5 max P2  1 mb cpw T b  T l2  al2 T l2  T e ; A:5

ch2 T_ h2 n5 n5 max P2  n2 n2 max zT h2  T z2  ah2 T h2  T e ; A:6

cz2 T_ z2 n2 n2 max z2 T h2  T z2  az2 T z2  T p az12 T z1  T z2 ; A:7

where
P1 1 P1 max  11  T h1  T l1 =DT 1 max A:8

and
P2 1 P2 max  11  T h2  T l2 =DT 2 max : A:9
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A.2. State space linearized model

2 3
19:525 7:988 0:0 0:0 7:988 0:0 0:0
6 7
6 28:361 29:759 1:134 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0 7
6 7
6 0:0 1:134 9:529 8:130 0:0 0:0 0:0 7
6 7
6 7
A 6 0:0 0:0 3:635 5:054 0:0 0:0 0:2364 7
6 7
6 28:361 0:0 0:0 0:0 29:759 1:134 0:0 7
6 7
6 7
4 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0 1:134 10:546 9:147 5
0:0 0:0 0:0 0:2659 0:0 4:090 5:685

2 3 2 3 2 3
80:698 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0
6 7 6 7 6 7
6 0:0 7 6 0:0 92:442 7 6 0:0 0:0 7
6 7 6 7 6 7
6 0:0 7 6 160:103 133:284 7 6 0:0 0:0 7
6 7 6 7 6 7
6 7 6 7 6 7
B1 6 0:0 7; B2 6 71:586 0:0 7; B3 6 0:0 0:0 7;
6 7 6 7 6 7
6 0:0 7 6 0:0 0:0 7 6 0:0 96:586 7
6 7 6 7 6 7
6 7 6 7 6 7
4 0:0 5 4 0:0 0:0 5 4 148:033 137:428 5
0:0 0:0 0:0 66:189 0:0

Table 1
Design parameters of the HVAC system

Variable Symbol Magnitude, units

Zone-1 Heat loss coefcient az1 122:935 W= C

Zone-2 Heat loss coefcient az2 138:32 W= C
Evaporator heat loss coefcient at1 at2 12:29 W= C
Condenser heat loss coefcient ah1 ah2 12:29 W= C
Boiler heat loss coefcient ah2 12:29 W= C
Inter zone heat loss coefcient az1 12:29 W= C
Thermal capacity of the zones cz1 cz1 374:48 KJ= C
Thermal capacity of the evaporators cl1 cl2 167:44 KJ= C
Thermal capacity of the condensors ch1 ch1 167:44 KJ= C
Thermal capacity of the boiler cb 594:55 KJ= C
Maximum air ow rate n1 max n2 max 1:575 KJ=s
Burner capacity n1 max 5:86 KJ=s
Heat pump capacity n1 max n2 max 3:8 KJ=s
Mass ow rate of water ms 0:3151 KJ=s
Specic heat of water cpw 4:186 KJ=Kg C
Heat exchanger z z1 z2 0:6 KJ=Kg C
Maximum coefcient of performance P1 max P2 max 3.5 (dimensionless)
Maximum temperature differential DT 1 max DT 2 max 45 C
Maximum temperature of the boiler T bmax 60 C
Boiler ue loss coefcient a 0.1 (dimensionless)
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Table 2
System operating point

Temperature C Control inputs

T b0 27:266 n10 0:40

T l10 25:584 n20 0:45
T h10 29:843 n30 0:50
T z10 21:966 n40 0:50
T l20 25:512 n50 0:50
T h20 27:944
T z20 20:662
T 10 20:0
T 20 2:0

C 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0; C 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0; C 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1;

E 1 1:774 0:2642 0:2642 0 0:2642 0:2642 0T ; E 2 0 0 0 1:1818 0 0 1:3296T :

A.3. Design parameters and operating points

See Tables 1 and 2 for design parameters and operating points.

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