An Air Balancing Method For Multi-Zone Ventilation Systems Based On Leader-Follower Consensus

To improve performance of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system and to maintain satisfactory indoor air quality, the airflow delivered to the zone should be carefully controlled and balanced. Most current air balancing methods are usually based on a data driven duct system model, which requires collecting large amounts of training data from actual systems and can therefore interrupt the normal operation of the ventilation system and cause inconvenience. To fix this issue, this paper proposes an air balancing method based on a leader-follower consensus. The proposed method designates the fan as the leader agent and the dampers in each zone as the follower agent, with the agent state representing the airflow ratio. The state of the leader agent is changed by adjusting the fan voltage and the angle of the dampers in each zone is continuously adjusted according to the leader-follower consensus protocol. This allows the state of the damper agent to continuously follow the state of the fan agent. When the states of all agents are consistent, the airflow in each zone is at the desired level. The proposed method allows for fast and accurate tracking of the desired airflow in each zone while does not require complex data collection procedures. Its effectiveness was validated by simulations using MATLAB.