A Study on Sensitivity Analysis Using MATLAB of Muscle Reflex and Thermal House Models

Sensitivity analysis of control systems is important in determining the response of the system to disturbances as well as variations in the parameters. This paper concentrates on analyzing the sensitivity of a muscle reflex model through measuring the response of the system. A system without tuning and with tuning were both utilized and compared. The response of the untuned system was first measured and was compared to the simulated response but yielded no desirable results. The system showed better results when tuned and sensitivity analysis showed which of the parameters has caused an impact to the system. Both the measured response and simulated response were good. These results were then compared to the results obtained from the tuned system without sensitivity analysis. Responses of both systems were desirable but the system with sensitivity analysis was more efficient since it took less time in modeling. Sensitivity analysis was also applied in the thermal house model to identify parameters influencing power consumption of cooling a house. The analysis reveals that thermal resistance of the house and heater temperature of the thermostat are inversely proportional with power consumption. At lower temperature setpoint, power consumption increases at a correlation coefficient of more than 0.5.