Instructor: Prof. K. Passino, 416 Dreese Laboratory, passino@ee

Office Hours: Set up an appointment or stop by

Teaching Assistant: Mr. Veysel Gazi

Laboratory: Rm. 761 Dreese Laboratory (each team leader gets a key)

Prerequisites: EE Core, EE 582, Some team members with EE 551 (offered in Au and Sp) and others with a good knowledge of programming in C.

General Focus: Computers have created unprecedented capabilities to automate the operation of many industrial and high technology systems. For instance, computers implement cruise control on your car to regulate the tracking of your desired speed even if there are hills, varying amounts of cargo, and wind. Computer control systems are also used for industrial process control, robotics, manufacturing systems, anti-skid brakes, missile guidance, and in many other areas. In this design course we will study the design and implementation of real-time automatic decision-making systems for industrial applications (in particular, process control). Challenges include how to interface computer algorithms to physical variables (e.g., level or temperature measurements), how to design and implement software that will operate within real-time constraints (e.g., via a real-time operating system), and how to design intelligence into the algorithms so that they perform properly (i.e., how to design control systems).

EE 682P Spring'00 Project:

Design of a Temperature Control System for a Building

Problem Statement:

You work in the automation division of a large company that is trying to bid on a project that will focus on the development of temperature controls for commercial buildings. You have indications that if you win the initial contract, this could have a major financial impact on your company, and your own fortunes, for many years to come since the sponsor is then likely to return to your company for future services. The sponsor is visiting in early June, 2000, and has asked that you construct a model building that shows off the types of sophisticated building temperature controls that your company can provide, and thereby highlights the skills of your team.

Background Information / Requirements:

Your team visited the sponsor and learned the following:

1. They are only interested in temperature control, not humidity. They are only concerned with heating, not air conditioning. The sponsor only expects to have buildings with two floors, and less than 5 rooms per floor, only one hallway per floor, and one door to the outside on the first floor. No rooms have a door directly to the outside, but some have windows that can be opened.

2. They expect a subset of the rooms to be controlled very accurately to 80 deg. F as these are expected to hold sophisticated scientific equipment (for growing specimens) that works best at this temperature. These rooms have no windows but do have doors to an internal hallway, always with vestibules. It is not as critical to keep the other room's temperatures in a tight tolerance; however, it should never be the case that someone would be "uncomfortable" with the temperature (for convenience, you can assume that 90 deg. is a comfortable temperature). All these other rooms may have windows, and doors to an internal hallway, but only hallways have doors to the outside (and there is always a vestibule for any set of doors to the outside). They want each 90 deg. room to have its own temperature sensor, and want a user to be able to independently set the temperature in such a room. They want the desired temperatures in the 80 deg. rooms, hallways, and all vestibules to be set and maintained automatically by the system. The system must have a real-time computer monitoring system that provides a user-friendly graphical interface for the maintenance staff, complete with indications of where there may be system failures.

3. The sponsor is particularly concerned about the cost of the system (including sensors, hardware to set desired temperature, cables, and computer monitoring system). Your team must be prepared to give a summary of the cost of your system. They are also concerned about the sampling rate that you use in the digital controller that you use; they want your sampling rate as low as possible due to the fact that the computer on which the temperature control system is going to be implemented will also be loaded with many other tasks. Also, they want a description of how the projects (this one and in the future) will be managed.

4. The sponsor wants the team to illustrate its ability to design a system that can reduce the effects of typical and extraordinary temperature "disturbances" (e.g., opening and closing of windows and doors, effects of ambient conditions) in the 80 deg. rooms, other rooms, and the hallways. In fact, you have indications that they consider the team's ability to design a system that copes with these problems well as the key factor in winning the contract since it illustrates significant skills in temperature control system development (it seems that the sponsor is seeking to establish a long term relationship with your company, and is generally concerned about how well you meet the challenge, since later they may have other temperature control problems that they may be willing to give you, possibly without a competitive bid).

5. This particular project, is, however, based on a competitive bid. Each team is going to be asked to demonstrate their temperature control system model, and will be allowed to ask questions of the other team for the purpose of comparing the competing models. The contract will be given to the team that designs the least expensive system that has the best ability to "reject" (reduce the effect of) temperature disturbances, with the lowest sampling rate. You tried to find out the importance of cost relative to sampling rate and the ability to reject temperature disturbances, but they were not clear on this issue; all they said is that they would like some quantification of the tradeoff between these issues so that if future projects traded off these two issues differently you would know how to design the system.