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A Practical Approach to Representation of Real-time Building Control Applications in Simulation

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Abstract

Computer based automation and control systems are becoming increasingly important in smart sustainable buildings, of- ten referred to as automated buildings (ABs), in order to automatically control, optimize and supervise a wide range of building performance applications over a network while minimizing energy consumption and associated green house gas emission. This technology generally refers to building automation and control systems (BACS) architecture. Instead of costly and time-consuming experiments, this paper focuses on development and design of a distributed dynamic simulation environment with the capability to represent BACS architecture in simulation by run-time coupling two or more different software tools over a network. This involves using distributed dynamic simulations as means to analyze the performance and enhance networked real-time control systems in ABs and improve the functions of real BACS technology. The application and capability of this new dynamic simulation environment are demonstrated by an experimental design, in this paper.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Pieter Smit, Buurman aan Jeroen Boschlaan van Eindhoven in the Netherlands for his true friendship and continuous encouragement, Professor Abdelkader Sahraoui at LAAS-CNRS of Toulouse in France for his significant support in helping me during these years of hard work, and Professor Jan Hensen at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands for his critical help in doing this research, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback to the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Building & Systems, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), PO Box 513, Eindhoven, 5600MB, Netherlands

    Azzedine Yahiaoui

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  1. Azzedine Yahiaoui
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Correspondence to Azzedine Yahiaoui.

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Azzedine Yahiaoui received the B. Sc. degree in electrical and telecommunications engineering from University of Boumerdes, Algeria in 1995, the M. Sc. degree in electronics engineering specialized control systems from University of Blida, Algeria in 1999, master of advanced studies (MAS) degree in automatic systems from LAAS-CNRS of Toulouse, France in 2001, and the Ph. D. degree in distributed computing and control systems from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), the Netherlands in 2013. He is a researcher at TU/e, the Netherlands. He has extensive experience in modelling and simulation, implementation and evaluation of distributed control systems, application of systems engineering concepts, as well as analysis and design of control systems for different domains of engineering namely aerospace, rail, automotive and buildings.

His research interests include systems of systems engineering, autonomous vehicles, distributed and hybrid control systems, multi-agent control systems, verification and validation of complex systems, and buildings automation and control systems.

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Yahiaoui, A. A Practical Approach to Representation of Real-time Building Control Applications in Simulation. Int. J. Autom. Comput. 17, 464–478 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11633-018-1131-1

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