A Novel Min-Consensus-Based Distributed Control Method for Multi-Zone Ventilation Systems

This article presents a min-consensus-based distributed control method for multizone ventilation systems. The proposed method consists of two stages: In stage 1, the ratio of the supplied airflow to the desired value for each zone achieves the agreement by regulating zone damper angles according to a newly designed min-consensus protocol. The convergence of this protocol is guaranteed by rigorous theoretical analysis. In stage 2, the fan voltage is regulated to bring supplied airflow of each zone to its respective desired value. The proposed method can achieve fast and accurate tracking of desired airflow for each zone while satisfying the ASHRAE standard that at least one zone damper should be nearly fully open. Compared with existing airflow control methods, the proposed method has following advantages: First, it does not require the explicit duct model and complicated data collection procedures.Second, with the proposed method, the airflow supplied to each zone can be adjusted to the desired value in a shorter time (less than 4 min). Third, the proposed method is a distributed control method and thus has the benefit of good scalability and reconfigurability. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated on an experimental testbed of a real ventilation system.