The present invention relates to an indoor air conditioning apparatus, and more particularly to a compensational control system for indoor air conditioning apparatuses and a compensational control method for the same.
Nowadays, the commonly used air conditioning system on the market includes a central air conditioning system and a varied refrigerant volume (VRV) air conditioning system.
Unlike the central air conditioning system, the VRV air conditioning system has an outdoor air conditioning apparatus and several indoor air conditioning apparatuses. In general, each of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses is responsible for controlling the ambient temperature and humidity of an area where the indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed. Therefore, operating parameters of the air conditioning apparatuses located in different areas are not the same and the air conditioning apparatuses may not communicate and interfere with each other.
In general, some buildings are divided their inner space into several areas and rented to different users. Since different users have different temperature and humidity requirements for the environment, and the VRV air conditioning system is usually used to meet the user's need to set the operating parameter of the located indoor air conditioning apparatus.
However, the original areas may be possibly changed depending on actual demands, for example, two divided areas are merged into a single open one. If there are several indoor air conditioning apparatuses are installed in the single open area or different indoor air conditioning apparatuses are influenced by each other because multiple divided areas are communicated with one another, and each of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses is in operation but fails to refer to other indoor air conditioning apparatuses, thereby easily causing the electricity waste due to the power consumption and the ambient temperatures and humidity of the areas where the indoor air conditioning apparatuses are installed are imbalanced.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a compensational control system for indoor air conditioning apparatuses and a compensational control method thereof to solve the above-mentioned problems. When one of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses is short of capacity, the other adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus is controlled and adjusted to support such one.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objective, the compensational control method of the present invention includes several steps of: controlling several indoor air conditioning apparatuses to be in operation by the control unit according to a target temperature; receiving continuously an operating parameter and an environmental datum provided from each of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses; determining whether there is a specific indoor air conditioning apparatus that needs support according to the operating parameters and the environmental data; acquiring an adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus which is influential for the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus according to an influence form which is previously built; establishing a supportive strategy according to a supportable operation capability of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus; and adjusting the operating parameter of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus according to the supportive strategy.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objective, the compensational control system for indoor air conditioning apparatuses is applied to the compensational control method of the present invention. The compensational control system includes a control unit and several indoor air conditioning apparatuses. The control unit determines a target temperature to be reached for different areas in a space. The indoor air conditioning apparatuses are connected to the control unit and receive the target temperature, and each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus being in operation according to its target temperature and continuously providing an operating parameter and an environmental datum to the control unit. The control unit acquires an adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus which is influential for the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus according to an influence form which is previously built when the control unit determines one of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses that needs support according to the operating parameters and the environmental data, establishes a supportive strategy according to a supportable operation capability of each adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus, and adjusts the operating parameter of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus according to the supportive strategy.
In comparison with the related art, the operating parameter of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus can be adjusted to support the indoor air conditioning apparatus which is short of capacity operated in a cooling mode or a heating mode so as to improve the ambient temperatures and humidity of the areas where the indoor air conditioning apparatuses are installed.
Moreover, any one of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses can be controlled to adjacently support other indoor air conditioning apparatuses and the operating parameters of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses can be adjusted to be coincident so as to reduce the overall power consumption.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the present invention as claimed. Other advantages and features of the present invention will be apparent from the following description, drawings and claims.
The present invention can be more fully understood by reading the following detailed description of the embodiment, with reference made to the accompanying drawings as follows:
Reference will now be made to the drawing figures to describe the present invention in detail. It will be understood that the drawing figures and exemplified embodiments of present invention are not limited to the details thereof.
The present invention discloses a compensational control system for indoor air conditioning apparatuses (hereinafter referred to as “control system”). The control system may be, for example but not limited to, a varied refrigerant volume (VRV) air conditioning system, and the VRV air conditioning system is used to improve ambient temperatures of multiple areas in a space.
In one embodiment, the control unit 3 is connected to the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 by a wired manner, such as a transmission line or a power line, or a wireless manner, such as a Bluetooth-based wireless connection or a ZigBee-based wireless connection, and the control unit 3 may be also installed inside the same space. In another embodiment, the control unit 3 may be installed on a cloud server, and wirelessly connected to the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 by an Internet connection. More specifically, the control unit 3 may be a server, a personal computer, a tablet computer, an embedded system, or an electronic apparatus, such as a smart mobile apparatus capable of transmitting data and processing data. In the present invention, the control unit 3 is provided to collect information of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 and further control the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1.
As shown in
As can be seen from the improvable areas shown in
As shown in
One of the purposes of the present invention is that the control unit 3 can adjust the operating parameters of other indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 which are influential for the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 so as to successfully improve the ambient temperature of the area where the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed.
As more specifically shown in
The present invention also provides a compensational control method applied to a control system shown in
Firstly, the control unit 3 determines a target temperature to be reached for different areas in the space according to related information after the control system is activated (S10). Afterward, the control unit 3 correspondingly transmits the target temperatures of the areas where the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 are installed in to the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 (S12), and each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 is in operation according to its target temperature. For example, when the target temperature is 25° C. and the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 receive the target temperature, the ambient temperatures of the areas where the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 are installed gradually (rise or fall to) approach 25° C.
In one embodiment, the above-mentioned related information may be, for example but not limited to, current date, current time, current season, outdoor temperature, and so on, that is, the control unit 3 can determine the target temperature according to current date, current time, current season, outdoor temperature, and so on.
More specifically, the control unit 3 can simultaneously confirm the target temperature and a comfortable temperature range corresponding to the target temperature in the step (S10). Also, the control unit 3 controls each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 according to the target temperature and the comfortable temperature range so that each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 can be operated in a more economical manner. For example, if the comfortable temperature range is set as 23.4° C. to 26.2° C., it represents that the user feels comfortable in the comfortable temperature range (23.4° C. to 26.2° C.). Therefore, if the target temperature is 24.8° C., each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 can be operated to maintain the temperature of the area between 24.8° C. and 26.2° C. rather than being kept fixed at the target temperature (24.8° C.) so that each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 of the control system can be operated in a more economical manner.
In one embodiment, the control unit 3 may provide a graphic user interface (GUI) for the user to input the comfortable temperature range. In another embodiment, the control unit 3 may, for example but not limited to, calculate the comfortable temperature range according to a thermal comfortable index—predicted mean vote (PMV). The thermal comfortable index is a commonly used technical indicator in the art, the detail description thereof is omitted here for conciseness.
After the step (S12), each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 is in operation according to the target temperature and the comfortable temperature range (S14). Also, the control unit 3 continuously receives the operating parameter and an environmental datum provided from each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 when the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 are in operation (S16). In one embodiment, the operating parameter includes a current wind speed and the environmental datum includes a current temperature of the area where the indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed. In another embodiment, the operating parameter further includes the comfortable temperature range.
After the step (S16), the control unit 3 updates an influence form which is previously built according to the operating parameters and the environmental data (S18). The detailed description of the influence form will be made hereinafter.
After the step (S16), the control unit 3 further determines whether there is any specific indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 that needs support according to the operating parameters and the environmental data (S20).
In one embodiment, when any one of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 is operated at a maximum wind speed for a period of time and the ambient temperature of the area where the indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed cannot be adjusted in the comfortable temperature range, the indoor air conditioning apparatus is determined as the “specific” indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 by the control unit 3. In another embodiment, when one of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 is operated at a wind speed which is excessively low (namely the ambient temperatures are imbalanced) relative to wind speeds of other indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1, the indoor air conditioning apparatus is determined as the “specific” indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 by the control unit 3.
If there is no any specific indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 that needs support (namely the ambient temperatures of all areas in the space 4 fall within the corresponding comfortable temperature ranges or the period time has not yet arrived), the control unit 3 continuously controls the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 to be in operation, receives the operating parameters and the environmental data provided from the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1, updates the influence form, and determines whether there is any specific indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 that needs support.
If any one of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 is the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus 1, the control unit 3 acquires an adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus which is influential for the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus according to the influence form (S22). Therefore, the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus can be controlled by the control unit 3 to support the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus 1.
Afterward, the control unit 3 establishes a supportive strategy according to a supportable operation capability of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus (S24). Also, the control unit 3 further adjusts the operating parameter of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus according to the supportive strategy (S26).
As shown in
After the step (S26), the control unit 3 calculates a waiting time and determines whether the ambient temperature of the area where the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed is improved within the waiting time (S28). In other words, the control unit 3 determines whether the ambient temperature of the area where the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed is within the comfortable temperature range. If the ambient temperature of the area where the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed is within the comfortable temperature range, the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus restores to the general indoor air conditioning apparatus 1.
If the ambient temperature of the area where the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed is not improved, the control unit 3 sends out a warning signal to notify a system administrator.
In one embodiment, the control unit 3 acquires several adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses which are influential for the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus in the step (S22), and the control unit 3 establishes several supportive strategies according to the supportable operation capabilities of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses in the step (S24). Therefore, the control unit 3 further determines whether there are other available supportive strategies when determining that the ambient temperature of the area where the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed is not improved within the waiting time (S30).
If there are other available supportive strategies, the control unit 3 may use a new supportive strategy to replace the strategy which has been used and the new supportive strategy is used in the step (S26), thereby increasing the operation capability by using different adjustment manners. For example, different adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses are adjusted or the wind speed of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus is increased. Moreover, the control unit 3 sends out the warning signal to notify the system administrator (S32) if there is no any available supportive strategy.
In one embodiment, the control unit 3 may determines whether the control system is powered off (S34). Also, the control unit 3 repeatedly performs the step (S14) to the step (S32) before the control system is powered off to continuously control the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1.
Refer to
As shown in
Finally, the control unit 5 establishes the supportive strategies according to the supportable operation capabilities of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses and adjusts the operating parameters of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses (namely the second indoor air conditioning apparatus 62 and the fourth indoor air conditioning apparatus 64) according to the supportive strategies as shown in
As described above, the control unit 3/5 searches other indoor air conditioning apparatuses which are influential for the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus according to the influence form which is previously built after the specific indoor air conditioning apparatus is detected. Therefore, the influence form previously built mainly records several influence values of each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 relative to other indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1.
Refer to
After the user sets the adjacent relationships, the control unit 3/5 calculates several influence values of each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 relative to other indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 according to the adjacent relationships (S44). In this embodiment, the influence values are zero (0) or one (1), where the zero of the influence value represents two indoor air conditioning apparatuses are not adjacent (namely two indoor air conditioning apparatuses have no influence on each other), and the one of the influence value represents two indoor air conditioning apparatuses are adjacent (namely two indoor air conditioning apparatuses have influence on each other). Finally, the control unit 3/5 builds the influence form according to the influence values (S46). In particular, the influence form may be shown as follows.
In the above-shown influence form, “IACA” is the abbreviation of the indoor air conditioning apparatus, that is, first IACA represents the first indoor air conditioning apparatus, and the rest may be deduced by analogy.
As can be seen in the above table, the first indoor air conditioning apparatus is adjacent to the second indoor air conditioning apparatus; the second indoor air conditioning apparatus is adjacent to both the first indoor air conditioning apparatus and the third indoor air conditioning apparatus; the third indoor air conditioning apparatus is adjacent to the second indoor air conditioning apparatus. According to the influence form, the control unit 3/5 can quickly query the influence values between the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1.
Refer to
In this embodiment, a positional relationship of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses can be recognized through the graphic user interface 31 by the user, and the user can set adjacent connections between the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses on the graphic user interface 31 by the user's finger, a keyboard, or a mouse. As shown in
Accordingly, it is convenient and easy to build influence form by drawing lines on the graphic user interface 31 by the user.
After the topology datum and the apparatus parameters are acquired, the control unit 3/5 correspondingly calculates the influence values of each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 relative to other indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 according to the topology datum and the apparatus parameters (S54). In this embodiment, the influence values are rational numbers between and including zero and one, where the zero of the influence value represents two indoor air conditioning apparatuses are not adjacent (namely two indoor air conditioning apparatuses have no influence on each other), and the two indoor air conditioning apparatuses are more adjacent to each other (namely the influence between the two indoor air conditioning apparatuses is larger) as the influence value is closer to one. Finally, the control unit 3/5 builds the influence form according to the influence values (S56). In particular, the influence form may be shown as follows.
In the above-shown influence form, “IACA” is the abbreviation of the indoor air conditioning apparatus, that is, first IACA represents the first indoor air conditioning apparatus, and the rest may be deduced by analogy.
The influence form produced by the steps shown in
In the above-shown operating history data, “IACA” is the abbreviation of the indoor air conditioning apparatus, that is, first IACA represents the first indoor air conditioning apparatus.
More specifically, the control unit 3 may correspondingly record the operating history data for each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1. When a number of the collected operating history data is more than the certain number or a time period of collecting the operating history data exceeds the certain time, the control unit 3 correspondingly calculates the influence values of each of the indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 relative to other indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 according to the operating history data (S64). In this embodiment, the influence values are rational numbers between and including zero and one.
For example, the first indoor air conditioning apparatus is in operation at a high wind speed for ten minutes, and a temperature variation value is minus 2° C. in the ten minutes. On the next day at the same time, the first indoor air conditioning apparatus is in operation at a high wind speed for ten minutes, and a temperature variation value is minus 4° C. in the ten minutes. In this embodiment, the control unit 3 confirms whether there is any indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 that is in operation at the same time according to all recorded operating history data. If there is any indoor air conditioning apparatus 1 (such as the second indoor air conditioning apparatus) that is in operation at the same time, the control unit 3 determines that the second indoor air conditioning apparatus is influential for the first indoor air conditioning apparatus. In one embodiment, the control unit 3 may calculate the influence value according to a difference value of the temperature variation values.
After the step (S64), the control unit 3 builds the influence form according to the influence values, or updates the influence form built by the steps shown in
Finally, the control unit 3 determines whether the control system is powered off (S68). Also, the control unit 3 repeatedly performs the step (S60) to the step (S66) before the control system is powered off to continuously update the influence form according to the latest operating history data.
As described above, if the control system uses the embodiments shown in
In one embodiment, the control unit 3 may dynamically and continuously calculate the supportable operation capabilities of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses after the control system is activated, thereby increasing the speed of calculating the supportive strategies. In another embodiment, the control unit 3 calculates the supportable operation capabilities of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses after the control unit 3 acquires the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses, thereby reducing the computing burden of the control unit 3. The detailed description of the supportable operation capability of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus will be exemplified hereinafter for further demonstration.
More specifically, the control unit 3 acquires the operating parameters and the environmental data provided from the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses before the control unit 3 calculates the supportable operation capabilities (S70). In one embodiment, the operating parameters record the current wind speeds and the comfortable temperature ranges of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses, and the environmental data record the current ambient temperatures of the area where the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatuses are installed.
Afterward, the control unit 3 calculates an adjustable wind speed range of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus according to the current wind speed and a maximum wind speed of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus (S72). In one embodiment, the adjustable wind speed range (ΔP) may be a difference value between the current wind speed and the maximum wind speed.
Referring to
For example, it is assumed that the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus is operated in a cooling mode, the comfortable temperature range is 23.4° C. to 26.2° C., and the current temperature is 24.8° C., and therefore the lower temperature of the comfortable temperature range is 23.4° C. and the temperature difference is 1.4° C. (=24.8° C.−23.4° C.). In other words, the adjustable temperature range (ΔT) of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus is 1.4° C., that is, the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus has the supportable operation capability to provide a temperature reduction of 1.4° C. For example, if the current temperature is 23.5° C., the temperature difference is 0.1° C. (=23.5° C.−23.4° C.). In this condition, the adjustable temperature range (ΔT) of the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus is 0.1° C., that is, the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus barely has the supportable operation capability to provide the temperature reduction.
In other words, when the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus is operated in the cooling mode and the ambient temperature of the area where the adjacent indoor air conditioning apparatus is installed is closer to the upper temperature of the comfortable temperature range as shown in
Referring to
The control unit 3, which is applied to the control system and the control method, is used to opportunely adjust the operating parameters of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses so that the ambient temperatures of the areas where the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 are installed can be correspondingly maintained in the comfortable temperature ranges. Moreover, the operating parameters of the indoor air conditioning apparatuses 1 can be adjusted to be coincident so as to reduce the overall power consumption of the control system.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood that the present invention is not limited to the details thereof. Various substitutions and modifications have been suggested in the foregoing description, and others will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, all such substitutions and modifications are intended to be embraced within the scope of the present invention as defined in the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201710325745.9 | May 2017 | CN | national |