Energy and Buildings 40 (2008) 22442252

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Energy and Buildings

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Development of an adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller for an HVAC system in a test room
Jianbo Bai a,b,*, Shengwei Wang b, Xiaosong Zhang c
a

College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University, 200# Jinling Beilu, Changzhou, 213022 Jiangsu, China Department of Building Service Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China c School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University, 2# Sipailou, Nanjing, 210096 Jiangsu, China
b

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 19 March 2008 Received in revised form 29 June 2008 Accepted 2 July 2008 Keywords: Air-conditioning Adaptive control Smith predictor PI controller

This paper presents an adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller and its application to the air-conditioning system of a test room. The signicant time delay of air-conditioning processes can lead to degradation of performance and instability of the control loop. The parameters of air-conditioning processes vary due to the changes in the operation conditions. By using a recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm combined with a z-domain tting method, the parameters of the air-conditioning process in the closed loop including time delay can be estimated online. Based on the estimated dead-time, a Smith predictor, which uses a reference model, is adopted to reduce the unfavorable effects of the time delay in the air-conditioning system. Based on the predicted error and estimated values, the control signal of the control loop is calculated by a self-tuning PI controller using ITAE tuning rules. The performance, robustness and effectiveness of the proposed control method are validated in the experimental platform. The corresponding performance of the proposed control method is compared with an adaptive PI controller. Experiment results demonstrate that the proposed strategy achieves better performance compared with the adaptive PI controller considering the effects of set-point changes, parameter variations or load disturbances in HVAC systems. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are required to control environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, ow rate and pressure in commercial buildings. Good HVAC control schemes in buildings help to reduce energy used and maintain occupant comfort. In spite of many advance in control theory, simply controllers of PI/PID type are still widely used in the majority of HVAC control loops [1]. Tuning a PI/PID controller requires an accurate model of a process and an effective design rule. There are three common methods to determine good values for the gain, integral time constant and derivative time constant of a PI/PID controller: manual tuning, auto tuning and adaptive control method. The manual tuning procedure can be a timeconsuming, expensive and difcult task [2]. Furthermore, this control method can only be accomplished through conservative tuning which will yield sluggish control most of the time. Autotuning relieves the pain of manually tuning a controller. This has

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 519 85191992; fax: +86 519 85120010. E-mail address: baijb@hhuc.edu.cn (J. Bai). 0378-7788/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2008.07.002

dramatically simplied the use of PI/PID controllers and improved their performance [3]. Adaptive control makes adjustment of the controllers automatically in real time, in order to achieve or to maintain a desired level of performance of a control system when the parameters of the plant dynamic model are unknown and/or change in time [4]. For thermal load disturbances, variation of uid ow rate, heat exchanger fouling or wear on valves, most HVAC systems have time-varying dynamics in which the model parameters are stro m and variable during the operation [5]. According to A Wittenmark, a xed gain controller should be used for systems with constant dynamics, and adaptive control methods should be used for processes with time-varying dynamics [6]. Consequently, we should use adaptive control methods in the HVAC industry. Most HVAC plants can be approximated by rst-order-plusdead-time systems [7]. Its control performance can be examined for this commonly approximated controller plant. Based on the rst-order-plus-dead-time model, several attempts have been made to apply adaptive control using PI/PID controller to HVAC plants. Nesler [8] has reported the implementation of three automated controller-tuning methods. One of the tuning methods relies on the estimation of the HVAC process model for calculating

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Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the air-conditioner test platform.

PI control parameters. Seem [9] has presented a new method for implementing a new pattern recognition adaptive controller (PRAC), developed through optimization, for automatically adjusting the parameters of PI controllers while under closed-loop control. Qu and Zaheeruddin [10] have developed real time tuning of PI controllers in HVAC systems. By using the RLS method, the model parameters were estimated while the HVAC system remained in closed loop. Then, H1 loop shaping tuning rules were transformed to discrete time tuning rules and implemented in an adaptive PI control strategy. However, above literature did not consider the inuence of the time delay related to uid transportation and its continuous variation in HVAC systems. The time delay can cause HVAC control loops to destabilize or to degrade their feedback performance [11]. It has been found in practice that the PI/PID controller would rapidly lose its effectiveness when the process time delay becomes signicant relative to the time constant [12]. When the time delay is small, PI/PID controller can be effectively used. This approach can achieve a satisfactory transient response as well as small steady-state error in some situations if the parameters are carefully selected. Sometimes, this approach could lead to poor control performance specically when the time delay is large. To hand such situations, Smith predictor is commonly used in feedback control of plants with signicant delays to implement effective compensate [13]. The application of Smith predictor in HVAC systems can be found in the following literature. MacArthur [14] has issued an adaptive control strategy with closed-loop pole displacement and variable transport delay compensation with Smith predictor. The control scheme is shown to be robust to both process and environmental disturbance. However, the control scheme does not give the selection of the closed-loop time constant which can guarantee the control performance. Geng and Geary [15] has described the application of PI control and Smith predictor in an air-handling plant. Results show that the PI control performance can be improved by introducing a Smith predictor with carefully selected parameters. But the parameters of the controller are xed;

this control method does not consider the time-varying dynamics in HVAC systems. Considering both the time-varying dynamics and the inherent time delay in HVAC systems, the primary objectives of the work described in this paper were to develop an adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller scheme and applies it to the typical HVAC system of an air-conditioner test platform. The adaptive controller uses a recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm combined with a z-domain tting method to estimate the models parameters online including time delay. Then the estimated parameters are used to update the Smith predictor parameters to compensate for the time delay of the HVAC system. The control signal of the control loop is calculated by a self-tuning PI controller based on the prediction error; the PI controller can select the closed-loop time constant automatically based on the estimated parameters using ITAE tuning rules. 2. HVAC system and system model 2.1. Modeling of HVAC system for control application The HVAC system considered in the paper is an air-conditioner test platform with temperature control (Fig. 1). It is composed of two test rooms which simulate indoor environmental space and outdoor environmental space, respectively. When the performance of an air-conditioner is being tested, the test rooms must keep temperature and humidity constant. Each test room has its own HVAC system including electric heater, electric humidier and evaporator of refrigeration plant to maintain the temperature and humidity in the room. For the convenience of analytical study, a heater is used as the only control element to control the temperature in each test room. Electric heaters are used with adjustable outputs within the range between 0 and 12 kW, corresponding to the controller input between 0 and 100%.

Fig. 2. Block diagram of the HVAC control system.

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To study the control performance of the system analytically, HAVC control loop was simplied as represented in Fig. 2. Where r(t) is the desired temperature (8C); u(t) is the PI/PID control output; y(t) is the room air temperature (8C); q(t) is the output of the heater (kW); Ks is the proportional (power) gain of the heater (kW/%); C is the overall thermal capacitance of the room (kJ/8C); R is the overall thermal resistance of the room (8C/kW); and Ld is the time delay (min). qi(t) is the load disturbances (kW). Then the transfer function of the air-conditioning process (Eq. (3)) is derived as follows. The relation of the output and input of the process illustrated in Fig. 2 can be written as Eq. (1). Y S K s U s qi s Ld s e sC 1=R (1)

Assuming the load disturbances qi(t) is zero, then the transfer function of the process can be written as Eq. (2).  Y s  Ks  eLd s (2) U sqi t0 sC 1=R Thus the HVAC system can be represented as a standard rstorder-plus-dead-time model represented by transfer function in Eq. (3) which has the gain Kr = (Ks R)(K/%), the time constant Tr(=C R) (min), the time delay Lr(=Ld) (min). P r s Kr esLr sT r 1 (3)

Fig. 3. Proportional gain of system (Kr) and time constant (Tr) at different operating point u(t).

3. Adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller An adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller control strategy is developed in this study. Fig. 4 shows the schematic diagram of the control scheme applied to the airconditioning system of the test platform. The control scheme is composed of three elements: hybrid parameters identier, selftuning PI controller and adaptive Smith predictor. The hybrid identication algorithm is an online parameter estimator and used to estimate the parameters of the system. The estimates of the HVAC plant parameters are used by the adaptive Smith predictor and self-tuning PI controller online. The task of the adaptive Smith predictor is to compensate the time delay of the HVAC system. Based on the compensated process error, the control signal is calculated by the self-tuning PI controller using the updated parameters. 3.1. Adaptive Smith predictor Many HVAC processes have unknown time delay, which associates with mass or energy transport, actuation devices, etc. The presence of the system time delay reduces the closed-loop stability, particularly when high feedback gains are used. In order to maintain the stability of the system, the controller should be less aggressive. However, this would result in a sluggish response of the system. To eliminate this unfavorable effect of the time delay, the

2.2. Model verication The test room has the of 5 m 4 m 3.8 m (H). The three parameters of the HVAC system can be determined graphically using data obtained from step response tests of the system. The air temperature in the test room was recorded when the controller output was increased from 0% to 100% step by step with an increment of 20%. Fig. 3 presents the performance data of the system from these tests. It can be found that the characteristics of the system were nonlinear and the parameters of the system varied signicantly when the working point (i.e. control input u(t)) changed. As the airow rate to the test room was constant, the pure time delay of the plant model changed less in the tests and varied from about 5 min to 6 min. Thus the parameters of the simplied model of the HVAC system have the following ranges: K r 2 62; 91; T r 2 55; 88; Lr 2 5; 6 (4)

Fig. 4. Diagram of adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller for HVAC system.

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Fig. 5. Block diagram of a Smith predictor regulating system.

Smith predictor is perhaps the best known and most widely used algorithm for time delay compensation. Smith predictor was used to compensate the time delay [13] as shown in Fig. 5. Where Gc(s) represents the controller. The reference model of the plant can be represented by a transfer function P m s Gm s esLm . Gm(s) represents the delay-free part of the reference model and esLm represents the time delay. A real plant can be described as Pr s Gr s esLr , Gr(s) and esLr represents the delay-free part and the time delay of the real plant, respectively. The transfer function of the entire system with the Smith predictor can be presented as Eq. (5). Y s Gc sPr s Rs 1 Gc sGm s Gc sP r s P m s Gc sGr s eLr s 1 Gc s1 eLm s Gm s Gc sGr s eLr s (5)

represented as Gr s Kr sT r 1 (8)

Similarly, Gm(s) the delay-free part of the reference model of the process used by Smith predictor can be chosen as Gm s Km sT m 1 (9)

Assuming that the integral time of the PI controller can be determined [12] to be equal to the time constant estimated (Ti = Tm), Eq. (6) can be simplied into K p K m eLm s Y s Rs sT m K p K m (10)

If there is a perfect matching between the reference model and the actual process (i.e. Gr(s) = Gm(s), Lr = Lm, and the disturbance is negligible), the transfer function of the closed loop becomes Y s Gc sGm s eLm s Rs 1 Gc sGm s (6)

Thus the time delay is removed from the control loop. Subsequently, its effect on the closed-loop performance is eliminated. This implies that the characteristic equation is free of the time delay so that the primary controller Gc(s) can be designed with respect to the delay-free part of the real plant Gr(s). The performance can thus be improved greatly over a conventional single-loop system without the delay-free output prediction. However, to achieve perfect compensation, the reference model should exactly match the plant dynamics. In practice, such a perfect matching can rarely be expected in HVAC systems due to the external disturbance input to the HVAC plant and plant parameter variations, including the time delay. This leads to imperfect compensation of the time delay and the control performance will not as good as expected. That is why the adaptive Smith predictor is adopted in the control algorithms developed in this study illustrated in Fig. 4 earlier. 3.2. Self-tuning PI controller The ITAE criteria-based self-tuning PI controller is employed in the Smith predictor-based control strategy. In Fig. 5, Gc(s) has the followed transfer function: Gc s K p K i =s K p 1 1=sT i (7)

It can be seen that the delay-free part of Y(s)/R(s) is a rst-order model. The proportional gain Kp of the PI controller can be calculated using ITAE (integral of time multiplied by absolute error) method [16] as below. The objective of using ITAE is to reduce the contribution of the relatively large initial error in the value of the performance integral and errors occurring later in the response. The ITAE method has the following equation: ITAE Z
0 T

t jet jdt

(11)

where ITAE is the time multiplied by the absolute magnitude of the error integrated from time 0 to T. The coefcients of the general closed-loop transfer function (Eq. (12)) minimizing the ITAE are determined using the ITAE performance criterion. T s b0 sn bn1 sn1 b1 s b0 (12)

This transfer function has a steady-state error equal to zero for a step input. Note that the transfer function has n poles and no zeros. The optimum coefcients of system closed-loop transfer function of different orders for the ITAE criterion are given in Table 1 for a step input. Let the delay-free part of Y(s)/R(s) in Eq. (10) is equivalent to T(s) in Eq. (12) when the n = 1, thus the Kp of the PI controller can be
Table 1 Optimum coefcients of T(s) based on ITAE criterion n 1 2 3 Dominator of T(s) s + vn s2 1:4vn s v2 n
3 s3 1:75vn s2 2:15v2 n s vn

where Kp is the proportional gain, Ki is the integral gain, and Ti is the integral time constant. In a HVAC system, the actual process can be considered as a First-order-plus-dead-time model, its delay-free part Gr(s) can be

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domain tting method. Then the Km, Tm and Lm parameters of the process reference model can be obtained. 4.2. Hybrid identication algorithm The RLS method is an effective approach for the online identication of model parameters. Usually, two parameters of the system, a and b, can be estimated using the RLS method [10]. But the third parameter, d, cannot be estimated online using the RLS method only. In this study, a new hybrid identication algorithm is adopted, which uses the RLS method with exponential forgetting combined with the z-domain tting method to estimate parameter a, b and d the same time (illustrated in Fig. 6). In order to estimate d, Pr(z)s numerator B(z1)zd is deployed as Bm(z1) as shown in Eq. (20). Where m 1 is the largest possible delay time of the HVAC system.
m Bm z1 b1 z1 b2 z2 bm z m

(20)

Then the estimated reference model of the HVAC process is

Fig. 6. Diagram of hybrid identication algorithm.

calculated as follows: Kp

P m z (13)

Bz1 d Bm z1 z Az1 Am z1 2 z2 b m zm 1 z1 b b m 1 z 1a (21)

vn T m
Km

where vn is the natural frequency. The Ki of the PI controller can be obtained as Ki

and the ^ symbol denotes an estimated parameter. The parameter estimates are presented as a vector as (14) a 2 ; . . . ; b m 1 ; b u ; b
T

vn
Km

(22)

Thus, the PI controller can be determined as   vn T m 1 1 Gc s sT m Km

resulting in the model output as hk yk u where hk yk 1; uk 1; uk 2; ...; uk m

T T

(15)

(23)

If the reference model of the process can be obtained using an online parameter identication algorithm, the only unknown in Eq. (15) is vn which can be considered as a lter time constant. 4. Online identication method 4.1. The discrete model of HVAC system In adaptive control, one also has to estimate the parameters of the plant model in closed-loop operation. The controller will be with time-varying parameters depending on the estimated plant model parameters. In order to identify the plant model parameters, the plant model must be described in discrete system. Based on Eq. (3), assuming T is the sampling time and d Lr T (16)

(24)

To allow the recursive algorithm to be able to update at each sampling instance, it is necessary to dene a model prediction error as k 1hk ek yk u
T

(25)

where e is the difference between the actual plant output and the estimated reference model output. This difference is used to update the parameter estimates according to k u k 1 Gkek u The gain matrix of the estimator, G(k), is dened as Gk pk 1hk (26)

r hT kPk 1hk

(27)

Thus the HVAC plant dynamics in z-domain, with the zeroorder-hold conversion, can be given by P r z where a eT =T r b K r 1 eT =T r (18) (19) Bz1 d bz1 z zd Az1 1 az1 (17)

The forgetting factor, r, is a value between 0 and 1 chosen by the designer as described below. The covariance matrix, P(k), is updated using P k 1

I Gkh kP k 1

(28)

According to the process input (u(t)) and output (y(t)), the parameters, a, b and d, can be estimated by RLS combined with a z-

The forgetting factor in Eq. (28) allows new data to be weighted more heavily than old data when updating the parameters. Thus, a large transient in the past will be discounted as time goes by. The initial value of P(k) and u(k) are chosen as estimates and allowed to settle to their nal values as the algorithm goes through several steps. There is no unique way to initialize the algorithm because it

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Fig. 7. Implementation of adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller on HVAC system in Simulink.

depends on knowledge on the process. The common suggestion is 0 0 and P(0) = aI, where a is a large value selected. to set u is estimated, parameters, b and d, of Pr(z)s numerator After u B(z1)zd can be calculated by the z-domain tting method. At  1 d frequency v = 0, let the  coefcients of Bz z zejvT equal to the m z1  coefcients of B  jvT as well as the coefcients of its rst ze order differential terms as shown in Eqs. (29) and (30).    m z1  Bz1 zd  jvT B (29)  jv T
z e z e

performance of the proposed control algorithm was compared with that of the adaptive PI control strategy (namely Reference Strategy hereafter) employing the PI/PID tuning rules proposed by Wang et al. [17]. It is worth noticing that the controller using the PI/ PID tuning rules demonstrated good performance when applied on HVAC systems [18]. The performance of both control algorithms are evaluated in computer simulation using the process model shown in Eq. (3). 5.1. Tests and comparison

  m z1  dB  jv T dBz1 zd zejvT ze dv dv

(30)

According to above equations, b and d can be estimated by b d

l X i b " i 1 P

(31) # 1 (32)

l i1 i bi Pl i1 bi

The integer value of the parameter, d, can be calculated by INTd 0:5 d (33)

5. Application of adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller The adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller was applied to the HVAC system of the test platform. The

Fig. 7 shows the implementation of the adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller for the HVAC process in Simulink environment. The real HVAC process represents the time-varying dynamics of the HVAC process of the test platform. The hybrid identication algorithm estimates the parameters of the HVAC process in each sampling step. The self-tuning PI controller updates its parameters online according to the estimate value using ITAE tuning rules. Both the delay-free part of the HVAC plant tuner and variable time delay tuner blocks are used to update the Smith predictor online. Fig. 8 shows the implementation of the adaptive PI controller in Simulink environment for the HVAC system. The functions of the real HVAC process and the hybrid identication algorithm blocks are the same as in Fig. 7. The self-tuning PI controller block updates parameters of PI controller according to the estimation of the HVAC model. Fig. 9 shows the test results of proposed strategy and Reference Strategy when set-point changed. In this test, the HVAC process

Fig. 8. Implementation of adaptive PI controller on HVAC system in Simulink.

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Fig. 9. Controlled temperature using two control strategies when changing setpoint.

Fig. 11. Difference between predicted and actual process outputs.

model was assumed as follows: P r s 72 e 60s 1

5 s

(34)

The ambient temperature was 27 8C; the variation of the temperature set-point was as follows: 8 < 35  C for 0 k < 100 r 39  C for 100 k < 200 (35) : 37  C for 200 k < 300 It can be seen that the proposed strategy has a smaller overshoot and a shorter setting time compared with the Reference Strategy. Fig. 10 shows the estimated plant parameters, Km, Tm and Lm, under closed-loop operation using the proposed strategy. Although the set-point varied during the test, the parameters estimated by the hybrid identication algorithm were very close to their actual values. Fig. 11 shows the difference between actual plant output y(t) and predicted output yt . It can be observed that at the beginning of the test, the difference was large and the identied parameters were oscillatory. After about 10 sampling steps, the identied parameters were very close to the actual parameters. Fig. 12 shows the variation of PI parameters of the proposed strategy in the test. Fig. 13 shows the variation of PI

parameters of the Reference Strategy. It can be seen that the parameters of the PI controller using the proposed strategy were larger than that of the Reference Strategy, which would lead to the increase of the response speed of the control loop without sacricing the stability. It can also be found clearly that the changes of the set-point did not affect the estimated parameters of the HVAC process during the test. Consequently the parameters of the PI controller were not affected. Fig. 14 shows the controlled temperature when the two control strategies were used, respectively, on the HVAC system with timevarying parameters. In these tests, followed HVAC process model was used: 8 72 e5s > > < 60 s1 P r s 5s > > 84 e : 72s 1 for 0 for 150 k < 150 (36) k < 300

The ambient temperature was 27 8C; the setting temperature was 35 8C. In Fig. 14, it can be found clearly that the proposed strategy demonstrated better performance compared with the Reference Strategy for the time-variable HVAC system. Fig. 15 shows the identied parameters during the test using the proposed strategy, it can be seen that when the parameters were time-varying, the

Fig. 10. Process parameters identied online.

Fig. 12. PI parameters of the proposed strategy in test.

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Fig. 13. PI parameters of Reference Strategy in test.

Fig. 16. Difference between predicted and actual process outputs.

Fig. 14. Controlled temperature using two control strategies with time-varying process parameters.

Fig. 17. Controlled temperature using two strategies with and without load disturbances.

Fig. 15. Process parameters identied online.

Fig. 18. Process parameters identied online with and without load disturbances.

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varying HVAC plant parameters online including time delay. By using the estimated process parameters, a Smith predictor is employed to reduce the effects of the time delay in the HVAC control loop. Then the control signal of the control algorithm is computed by a self-tuning PI controller using ITAE tuning rules based on the prediction error and the estimated process parameters. Tests show that, when the set-points changed or the process parameters varied in HVAC systems, the hybrid identication algorithm could identify the process parameters quickly and accurately. The proposed strategy has smaller overshoot and shorter setting time compared with the adaptive PI controller. Although the load disturbances might lead to the mismatch between the real HVAC process and the reference model, the use of the proposed strategy can reduce the impact of the load disturbances to some extent and, therefore, the proposed strategy is more robust and stable than the adaptive PI controller.
Fig. 19. PI controller parameters of the proposed strategy with and without load disturbances.

References
[1] C.P. Underwood, HVAC Control Systems: Modelling, Analysis and Design, E & FN Spon, London and New York, 1999. [2] K.I. Krakow, S. Lin, PI control of fan speed to maintain constant discharge pressure, ASHRAE Transactions 101 (2) (1995) 398407. stro m, T. Hagglund, A. Wallenborg, Automatic tuning of digital controllers [3] K.J. A with applications to HVAC plants, Automatica 29 (5) (1993) 13331343. [4] Y.D. Landau, Adaptive Control, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1998. [5] D.E. Seborg, Process Dynamics and Control, Wiley, New York, 1989. stro m, B. Wittenmark, Adaptive Control, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, [6] K.J. A 1995. [7] M. Kasahara, T. Matsuba, Y. Kuzuu, T. Yamazaki, Y. Hashimoto, K. Kamimura, S. Kurosu, Design and tuning of robust PID controller for HVAC systems, ASHRAE Transactions 105 (PA) (1999) 154166. [8] C.G. Nesler, Automated controller tuning for HVAC applications, ASHRAE Transactions 92 (2B) (1986) 189201. [9] J.E. Seem, New pattern recognition adaptive controller with application to HVAC systems, Automatica 34 (8) (1998) 969982. [10] G. Qu, M. Zaheeruddin, Real-time tuning of PI controllers in HVAC systems, International Journal of Energy Research 28 (15) (2004) 13131327. [11] M. Kasahara, T. Matsuba, I. Murasawa, Y. Hashimoto, K. Kamimura, A. Kimbara, S. Kurosu, Tuning method of two degrees of freedom PID controller, ASHRAE Transactions 103 (1) (1997) 278289. [12] C.H. Chang, C.H. Tan, W.P. Chan, A Performance study of control systems with dead time, IEEE Transactions on IECI 27 (3) (1980) 234241. [13] J.M. Smith, Closer control of loops with dead time, Chemical Engineering Process 53 (5) (1957) 217219. [14] J.W. MacArthur, An effective approach for dynamically compensated adaptive control, ASHRAE Transactions 95 (2) (1989) 415423. [15] G. Geng, G.M. Geary, Application of PI control and smith predictors in an airhandling plant, in: Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Control Applications, Vancouver, BC, USA, 1993. [16] R.C. Dorf, R.H. Bishop, Modern Control Systems, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1995. [17] Q.G. Wang, T.H. Lee, H.W. Fung, Q. Bi, Y. Zhang, PID tuning for improved performance, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology 7 (4) (1999) 457465. [18] Q. Bi, W.J. Cai, Q.G. Wang, C.C. Hang, E.L. Lee, Y. Sun, K.D. Liu, Y. Zhang, B. Zou, Advanced controller auto-tuning and its application in HVAC systems, Control Engineering Practice 8 (6) (2000) 633644.

hybrid identication algorithm could estimate the parameters quickly and accurately. Fig. 16 shows the difference between the actual process output and model-predicted output. It is noted when the parameters changed in 150th sampling time, although the estimated parameters can reach a new steady-state quickly, the difference in the beginning was still large and the transition period was long. Fig. 17 shows the response of the two control strategies when there were load disturbances on the HVAC process. Assuming the HVAC model was the same as Eq. (34), the ambient temperature was 27 8C, the room temperature set-point was 35 8C, the cyclic load disturbances period was 100 min starting at the 100th sampling step, the amplitude was 1 kW and it appeared in 2% of time during each cycle. It is observed that the proposed strategy remained stable and reduced the impact of the load disturbances more signicantly compared with the Reference Strategy in the tests. Fig. 18 shows the process parameters identied online by the proposed strategy. Fig. 19 shows the variation of the PI parameters of the proposed strategy. It can be seen that the load disturbances would lead to the mismatch between the real HVAC process and the reference model, but the use of adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller can reduce the impact of the load disturbances to some extent. 6. Conclusions In this paper, a new adaptive Smith predictor-based self-tuning PI controller is developed for HVAC systems which have timevarying dynamics and signicant time delay. The control scheme adopts the hybrid identication algorithm to estimate the time-