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R. Hofstädter, J. Amaya, M. Kozek:
"Energy Optimal Control of Thermal Comfort in Trams";
Applied Thermal Engineering, 143 (2018), 812 - 821.

This paper presents a method for thermal comfort control for trams which achieves the desired thermal comfort and
minimises the power consumption of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). Mathematical models of all
relevant parts are stated (these parts being the tram and the HVAC considering both comfort and energy consumption)
and these models are linearised.
Using linearised models, cascaded control loops are established. A model-predictive controller regulates the thermal
comfort inside the tram as a master controller and outputs an auxiliary control variable to the slave controller. A
heuristic, realised as mixed-integer optimisation, converts the auxiliary control variable in an energy-optimal way
into switching commands for the HVAC. For validation, the method is implemented on a rapid controller prototyping
platform. Testing of the control approach is done during several climatic wind tunnel measurements. The annual energy
consumption is extrapolated using these results.

HVAC, tram, predictive control, mixed-integer optimization

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2018.07.084