Fuzzy supervisory control strategies to minimise energy use of airport terminal buildings

Airport terminal buildings are among energy most consuming buildings and this presents huge opportunities for implementing energy saving strategies. Achieving satisfactory control of these buildings using classical controllers alone is difficult because they contain components that are complex, nonlinear but dynamically related. Therefore, this paper presents and appraises fuzzy control strategies for reducing energy consumptions while simultaneously providing comfort for passengers in an airport terminal building. The inputs into this fuzzy supervisory controller are the time schedule for arrival and departure of passenger planes as well as the expected number of passengers during each flight, zone illuminance and external temperature. The controller outputs optimised temperature, airflow rates and lighting setpoints for the conventional controllers. Simulation studies in MATLAB/SIMULINK confirmed the capacity of this control strategy to provide comfort setpoints for the passengers at reduced energy.