Adaptive environmental control for optimal energy consumption in hospitals

Abstract

A second order dynamical model of the heating/cooling process in a hospital building is simulated. A fuzzy logic controller (FLC) based on if-then control rules is designed and the performance of the FLC is compared with that of commonly used on/off and PI/PID controllers. Both the FLC and the PI/PID controllers outperform the on/off controller in terms of accuracy, as well as energy consumption. However, the FLC is more robust than the PI/PID controllers in that the FLC is much less sensitive to changes in system parameters and consumes less energy.<>