Fast Tuning of the PID Controller in An HVAC System Using the Big Bang-Big Crunch Algorithm and FPGA Technology

This article presents a novel technique for the fast tuning of the parameters of the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller of a second-order heat, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The HVAC systems vary greatly in size, control functions and the amount of consumed energy. The optimal design and power efficiency of an HVAC system depend on how fast the integrated controller, e.g., PID controller, is adapted in the changes of the environmental conditions. In this paper, to achieve high tuning speed, we rely on a fast convergence evolution algorithm, called Big Bang-Big Crunch (BB-BC). The BB-BC algorithm is implemented, along with the PID controller, in an FPGA device, in order to further accelerate of the optimization process. The FPGA-in-the-loop (FIL) technique is used to connect the FPGA board (i.e., the PID and BB-BC subsystems) with the plant (i.e., MATLAB/Simulink models of HVAC) in order to emulate and evaluate the entire system. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed technique in terms of optimization accuracy and convergence speed compared with other optimization approaches for the tuning of the PID parameters: sw implementation of the BB-BC, genetic algorithm (GA), and particle swarm optimization (PSO).