Tata Consultancy Services Limited

Srinarayana Nagarathinam

Anand Sivasubramaniam

Arunchandar Vasan

Venkatesh Sarangan

Rajesh Jayaprakash

Venkatesh Ramanathan

Supriya Agrawal

Ramasubramanian Suriyanarayanan

Sagar Kumar Verma

Venkata Ramakrishna P

Avinash Achar

Ulka Shrotri

Venkata Ramakrishna Padullaparthi

Shiva R Iyer

Harihara Subramaniam Muralidharan

Kundan Kandhway

Praveen Manoharan

Aabriti Dutta

Vankatesh Sarangan

HVAC control system's supervisory control is crucial for energy-efficient thermal comfort in buildings. The control logic is usually specified as 'if-then-that-else' rules that capture the domain expertise of HVAC operators, but they often have conflict that may lead to sub-optimal HVAC performance. Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and system for optimized Heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) control using domain knowledge combined with Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). The system disclosed utilizes Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) for conflict resolution in a HVAC control in combination with domain knowledge in form of control logic. The domain knowledge is predefined in an Expressive Decision Tables (EDT) engine via a formal requirement specifier consumable by the EDT engine to capture domain knowledge of a building for the HVAC control.

Optimized HVAC control using domain knowledge combined with deep reinforcement learning (DRL)

Reinforcement Learning agent interacting with a real-world building to determine optimal policy may not be viable due to comfort constraints. Embodiments of the present disclosure provide multi-deep agent RL for dynamically controlling electrical equipment in buildings, wherein a simulation model is generated using design specification of (i) controllable electrical equipment (or subsystem) and (ii) building. Each RL agent is trained using simulation model and deployed in the subsystem. Reward function for each subsystem includes some portion of reward from other subsystem(s). Based on reward function of each RL agent, each RL agent learns an optimal control parameter during execution of RL agent in subsystem. Further, a global optimal control parameter list is generated using the optimal control parameter. The control parameters in the global optimal control parameters list are fine-tuned to improve subsystem's performance. Information on fine-tuning parameters of the subsystem and reward function are used for training RL agents.

Multi-agent deep reinforcement learning for dynamically controlling electrical equipment in buildings

This disclosure relates generally to method and system for maximizing space utilization in a building. Due to current pandemic scenario many organizations eventually need to plan for the return of employees to office space ensuring biosafety. The challenge of maximizing the office space utilization ensuring occupants biosafety and comfort thereby minimizing HVAC energy consumption is necessary. The method utilizes two heuristic approaches for determining maximum allowable occupants placement in the open plan space using an optimal occupant placement technique. This minimizes the HVAC energy if the actual count is lesser than the possible maximum occupants can be placed which further optimizes energy using a joint actuator control technique. Additionally, the proposed two heuristic approaches improve space utilization for the infection rate ensuring bio safety. Full utilization of open plan space is possible when the community infection rate and exposure duration are relatively low resulting low risk probability for uninfected occupants.

Method and system for maximizing space utilization in a building

Traditionally, benchmarking of asset performance involves comparing actual performance with ideal values that correspond to test conditions which may not be realized in practice leading to inappropriate ranking of the assets. Systems and methods of the present disclosure use condition-aware reference curves for estimating the maximum possible operating efficiencies (under specific operating conditions) instead of the theoretical maximum efficiencies. The reference curves are received from the manufacturer or obtained from on-site test results. Benchmarking is then performed based on two dimensions, viz., an inter-asset metric and an intra-asset metric that are analogous to the first law and second law of thermodynamics respectively. The two-dimensional benchmarking then helps in identifying inefficient assets that may be analyzed further for finding the root cause. Tracking the performance of assets over time greatly helps in operations and maintenance, and thus reducing downtime of systems and accordingly the operating costs.

Methods and systems for benchmarking asset performance

Sub-systems of air handling units in infrastructures face unresolved problem of conflict in the rules that activate in a contradictory manner at the same time resulting in sub-optimal performance of the subsystems. The present disclosure provides a system and method for optimizing performance parameters of air handling units in infrastructures. Rule sets having conflicting conditions are identified after verification of rules which are specific to air handling units. Further, frequency of the rule sets having conflicting conditions is determined to generate a ranked list of the rule sets having conflicting conditions. Another ranking procedure is implemented for the rules comprised in the ranked list of the rule sets having conflicting conditions. The system dynamically optimizes one or more parameters specific to the performance criteria based on the ranking of rules.

Systems and methods for optimizing performance parameters of air handling units in infrastructures

Electrical utilities offer incentives to customers to reduce consumption during periods of demand-supply mismatch. A building's participation in demand response (DR) depends both on its ability (due to building constraints), and its willingness (a function of incentive) to reduce electricity. Customers prefer a large incentive whereas a utility would want to minimize the revenue outflow to achieve a target reduction. Systems and methods of the present disclosure identify optimal incentive from the utility's perspective reflecting this trade-off. A model is built to estimate the demand response potential (DRP) of a building for a given incentive offered by the utility. The models for individual buildings are used to characterize the behavior of an ensemble of buildings. The utility may then decide optimum incentives that should be offered to achieve a target DR, using the associated DRP.

Systems and methods for optimizing incentives for demand response

The present disclosure provides system and method for determining optimal decision parameters for a demand response (DR) event involving a District Cooling Plant (DCP). Most of conventional DR event techniques address control of building-level energy consumption loads alone while in presence of District Cooling (DC) has not received much attention when a plurality of buildings are served by a District Cooling Plant (DCP). The disclosed system and method determine set points of optimal decision parameters of the plurality of buildings and the DCP, by conditioning and un-conditioning on the DCP parameters such that a thermal discomfort of occupants residing in the plurality of buildings is minimum and achieves a maximum target energy demand reduction during the DR event. The disclosed system and method work for hundreds of buildings and able to determine the optimal decision parameters for each building and the DCP efficiently.

Determining optimal decision parameters for a demand response event involving a district cooling plant

Identifying policy violations for controlling behavior of an Internet of Things (IoT) automation system is provided. Traditional systems and methods provide for controlling IoT based automation system based upon a static analysis of a system model and rules. The embodiments of the proposed disclosure provide for controlling behavior of the IoT automation system by identifying one or more policy violations, wherein the one or more policy violations are identified by generating a plurality of models representing behavior, relationships and functions of one or more sub-systems corresponding to the IoT automation system; extracting a set of modelled rules; constructing, using each of the plurality of models and the set of modelled rules, an integrated model; and identifying, from the integrated model, the one or more policy violations via a Model Verifier Component for controlling behavior of the IoT automation system.

Controlling behavior of an internet of things (IoT) automation system by identifying policy violations

This disclosure relates generally to a system and method to identify at least one conflict and for controlling both static and dynamic variables in one or more operations of at least one subsystem of a plurality of building automation sub-systems. It includes a supervisory control layer that orchestrates multiple underlying sub-systems like heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) sub-systems and at least one access control sub-system. A test case generation framework is used to verify static and dynamic variables of operations of the sub-systems. It identifies conflicts in the static and dynamic variables. Therefore, the system provides controls to the sub-systems using the identified and adjusted conflict of static and dynamic variables on operations.

System and method for efficient verification of building automation systems

A system and method for optimizing energy consumption in a plurality of air handling units (AHUs) in a zone is provided. The system comprising a zone thermal unit that is configured to obtain a first set of input parameters including an internal heat gains, a surface convective loads, an intra-zone mixing, a supply air temperature, a second set of input parameters including internal moisture gains, a supply humidity ratio, and a third set of input parameters including an air contaminant concentration and an ambient contaminant concentration of the AHUs and generates a first set of output parameters including a zone temperature, a humidity ratio and an air concentration. The system further includes an optimizer that is configured to generate a second set of output parameters including an optimum combination of AHU flow rates for the AHUs based on at least one of the first set of output parameters.

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Chennai, India

Srinarayana Nagarathinam