Towards an Automated Tool Chain for MPC in Multi-zone Buildings

Due to climate change energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important. This is particularly true for the building system control sector, where a large energy saving potential exists. Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a new control technique in this sector that minimises the building energy use while taking into account comfort and other constraints through the use of a simplified building model. Setting up the required MPC ‘controller’ model for each building is however challenging and requires a lot of expertise work. In this paper we present a Linear Automated Toolchain for MPC (LAT-MPC) that allows highly automating the process of setting up a controller model and running a linear MPC. Due to this automation new research such as integrated optimal control and design of buildings comes into the picture.