Domestic Heat-Pump Water Heater
Smart Controller
Methodology
1. System Modelling
System modelling is an important part od the development of this technology. In this part computer software will be used to modelling an heat pump and their control. MatLab and SimuLink will be used in this part, with fuzzy logic and neuronal network installed libraries and packages.
Electric tariffs values: First, the values of electric tariffs will be acquired to train the neural network.
Water stratification: One of needed variables to improve efficiency is the water flux that exits the heat pump. This way temperature sensors will be used in water tank and the relation between all water tank temperature sensors will give an estimated water consume profile.
Environment measures: Also it is interesting to acquire external variables such as temperature and humidity. This variables will be used to train the neural network in order to increase the efficiency of the heat pump.
User profile (consumption): User profile habits related to water consumption will be stored and once a week neural network will be trained to predict user actions.
2. System Design
System design involves the implementation of developed code in a micro-controller and,
during testing, optimize controller parameters due to tuning methodologies.
3. System Result Acquisition
This phase is constituted by the development of an methodology that tests heat pump in real conditions and de acquisition of data.
Real pattern consumption testing: With this methodology, heat pump will be tested with the same working conditions of the simulations made at system modelling.
Data processing: All data acquired in heating process will be processed and analysing in order to support the results and conclusions that will be obtain.
4. Dissertation Writing and Defence
In this part of dissertation, all information relevant is going to be documented. Therefore during the development of this project it is pretended to ensure the ongoing documentation and, in June, finishing the writing process will be the main focus.
Defence will include needed corrections and presentation preparation.