I am working on the control of complex thermal networks used for large scale heating or cooling applications. Examples of such networks are building cooling systems and district heating systems where complexity is the consequence of both the large number of components and the dynamical coupling between them. Another challenge is posed by nearly an order of magnitude time-scale difference that exists between the rates of the thermal and flow dynamics.

Graph theoretical tools have been extensively used to address network complexity problems in communication systems and robotics. Inspired by these applications, the objective of my work is to use Graph Thory for the understanding of complexity in thermal networks which shall find use in designing efficient control methodologies for such systems. More details will be published here based on the progress of the work.

 

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