AGENT

 

Agent systems for intelligent and robust control of complex energy systems in non-residential buildings as part of the higher-level energy system

 

Duration: 3 years (05/2019 – 04/2022)
Project partners:

  • RWTH Aachen, E.ON Energy Research Center, Institute for Energy Efficient Buildings and Indoor Climate
  • Robert Bosch GmbH, Future Systems for Building Technology, Management & Automation
  • Friederich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Control Engineering (LRT)

The high complexity of energy systems in non-residential buildings leads to difficulties realizing an efficient operation in practice while taking into account comfort requirements. State of the art is a central control of the building energy system. As a result, the individual subsystems are not sufficiently coordinated with other system components to enable robust and efficient operation due to the complexity of the system.

The pursued approach is to reduce the complexity by distributing the tasks to individual software agents. In this context, an agent is a autonomous unit with the aim to achieve defined goals independently. This requires communication with other agents and the environment. In an agent system, different agents solve one or more tasks together.

The goal of the project is the development of an agent system for non-residential buildings to increase the reliability, durability and efficiency of the components used. The first step is to define evaluation criteria and develop user models for a demand-oriented energy supply. Additionally, it will be evaluated, how a flexible operation of the building can be used to support the electrical distribution grid. Subsequently, we implement the agents as a part of a test platform. The agent system should configure itself automatically and control the various components in a self-learning and predictive manner. After simulating the developed agents, a demonstration of the designed agent system in an office building is realized. Finally, we will compare the obtained results with the state of the art regarding to the defined evaluation parameters.

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We gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the BMWi (Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy), promotional reference 03ET1495A.

 
 

Announcements

03/12/2019

EBC and ACS invited their project partners in the BMWi project AGENT to a three-day workshop in Aachen. The participants worked closely together to advance the implementation of the agent platform and the MPC-based control for non-residential buildings.

 
15/07/2019

Stefan Dähling participated in the 5-days kickoff sprint of the project AGENT hosted by Bosch at their research campus in Renningen. The project partners discussed goals, methods and interfaces for their cooperation. An initial architecture for the agent-based building automation system was developed. Moreover, a detailed work plan for the next six month was compiled.

 
23/05/2019

The kickoff meeting of the new BMWi project AGENT was held on 23rd May at the Bosch Research Campus in Renningen. ACS was represented by Igor Sowa and Stefan Dähling. AGENT deals with agent-based energy management systems in nonresidential buildings. Project partners are Robert Bosch GmbH, FAU Erlangen and RWTH Aachen University with the two institutes EBC and ACS.