Fuzzy Controllers Instead of Classical PIDs in HVAC Equipment: Dusting Off a Well-Known Technology and Today’s Implementation for Better Energy Efficiency and User Comfort

Cutting-edge building energy management systems (BEMS) interact with heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) systems, which generally account for much of the energy consumption. Major attention is focused on the BEMS themselves, barring on-field equipment. In HVAC equipment, sub-optimal controller settings may lead to energy losses and user discomfort, for instance, due to oscillations of air temperature and fan speeds. The way to solve this problem could be to replace classical PID controllers with an alternative concept that does not require tuning and works optimally for a wide range of parameters. This paper compares a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) with a standard PID for a model-based simulation of an HVAC system in Simulink for different conditions using real building measurement data. The end result is the implementation of the developed methods in a newly designed universal control board for air handling units (AHU). The proposed FLC achieves better integral control quality indicators (IAE, ISE, ITAE, ITSE) by at least 27.4%, and smaller supply air temperature variation; the daily mean square error (MSE) was reduced by an average of 36%, which leads immediately to better occupant comfort and a presumed reduction in energy consumption. Compared to the untuned PID, energy consumption was 12.7% lower; this will ensure improved economy from the lowest level, and paves the way for interoperability with high-level energy management schemes.