Application and Comparison of Temperature Control Strategies to a Heating Element Nonlinear Model

This paper presents the design of different control strategies applied to a heating element nonlinear model. The description of this heating element was obtained exploiting a data–driven and physically meaningful nonlinear continuous–time model, which represents a test–bed used in passive air conditioning for sustainable housing applications. This model has low complexity while achieving high simulation performance. The physical meaningfulness of the model provides an enhanced insight into the performance and functionality of the system. In return, this information can be used during the system simulation and improved model– based and data–driven control designs for tight temperature regulation. The main purpose of this study is thus to give several examples of viable and practical designs of control schemes with application to this heating element model. Moreover, extensive simulations and Monte– Carlo analysis are the tools for assessing experimentally the main features of the proposed control schemes, in the presence of modelling and measurement errors. These developed control methods are also compared in order to evaluate advantages and drawbacks of the considered solutions. Finally, the exploited simulation tools can serve to highlight the potential application of the proposed control strategies to real air conditioning systems.