Abstract: Buildings consume a significant amount of energy worldwide. Therefore, there is a need to develop solutions that can enable both existing and future buildings to operate efficiently while ensuring occupant comfort. In this presentation, I will describe previous and ongoing work at the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) on the development of modeling, control and optimization solutions for buildings and energy systems in order to meet sustainability, economic, resilience and comfort objectives. The presentation will cover themes of system design, optimal control, adaptive control, and data-driven modeling and control design as applied to buildings, using examples from specific projects at PNNL. Special emphasis will be provided to the use of deep learning based techniques for modeling and control.
Dr. Vikas Chandan is a scientist in the Optimization and Control Group within the
Energy and Environment Directorate at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
Previously, he was a Research Staff Member in the Next Generation Energy Systems Department at IBM Research from 2013 to 2016. He received a B.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in 2006 followed by M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2010 and 2013 respectively. His research specializes in the application of modeling, control and optimization to the area of energy systems, in particular to building energy management. He has around 50 publications and patents in this area. One of his previous works in the area of using discarded laptop batteries for addressing energy poverty in developing countries has received global media acclaim.
Contact: Prof. Koushik Kar (koushik@ecse.rpi.edu)