2011 21st International Conference on Systems Engineering
Modelling of an air handling unit: a
Hammerstein-bilinear model identication approach
I. Zajic, T. Larkowski, M. Sumislawska, K. J. Burnham
Control Theory and Applications Centre
Coventry University
Coventry, UK
Email: zajici@uni.coventry.ac.uk
AbstractThe paper focuses on modelling and system iden-
tication of an air handling unit (AHU), which is part of
larger heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system
dedicated for clean room manufacturing. The aim is to use the
model for subsequent control optimisation and further for control
system design. The underlying physical relations of an AHU are
investigated through a white-box model. Based on the white-box
model considerations a discrete-time bilinear black-box model
is proposed. The AHU cooling/heating capacity is altered by
means of water valves. The valve introduces a Hammerstein
nonlinearity on the system input, which needs to be additionally
identied together with the dynamic bilinear model representing
the heating/cooling coil of the AHU. The discrete-time model
coefcients are then estimated based on real measurements.
Keywords-air handling unit; bilinear model; Hammerstein
model; HVAC; system identication
I. I NTRODUCTION
Abbott Diabetes Care (ADC) UK, an industrial collaborator
of the Control Theory and Applications Centre, develops
and manufactures the blood glucose and ketones test strips,
which are designed to assist persons with diabetes, see [1].
One of the manufacturing requirements is that the environ-
mental conditions during production are highly stable and
within dened limits. To achieve this goal ADC UK utilises
heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems for
all clean room production. Investigations have revealed that
the performance of the HVAC systems, which make use
of standard proportional-integral and proportional-integral-
derivative (PI/PID) controllers, can be signicantly improved.
Consequently, this paper reports on research which focuses on
increasing the energy efciency of the HVAC systems through
the analysis and optimisation of control systems with a view
to subsequent implementation.
The present paper is concerned with the modelling of an
air handling unit (AHU), being part of the investigated HVAC
system based in ADC UK, which is described in more detail
in [2]. The aim is to use the identied model of the AHU for
analysis of the temperature control loop. This facilitates the
use of off-line control optimisation procedures as well as the
testing of the proposed control strategies in simulation without
disrupting the manufacturing process.
The underlying physical relations and deep understanding
of the investigated system at hand, play an important part
978-0-7695-4495-3/11 $26.00 2011 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICSEng.2011.19
D. Hill
Abbott Diabetes Care Ltd
Witney, Oxfordshire, UK
Email: dean.hill@abbott.com
in the identication of such a real-world system. Therefore,
a simplied rst principles model of an AHU is used as a
surrogate for the actual AHU located in ADC UK. Subse-
quently, the underlying dynamic relations between the system
inputs and outputs are investigated via computer simulation
and the discrete-time structured nonlinear model is identied.
The potential shortfall of using rst principles models is the
need for knowledge concerning the model coefcients, which
are not commonly available in practice. However, it can be
assumed that these are at least partially known. In this regard,
the parameters of an identied discrete-time model are re-
estimated based on measurements from the plant. In this way
any un-modelled AHU behaviour, which is not accommodated
in the rst principles model, is then reected within the
reduced order discrete-time structured nonlinear model utilised
for control analysis.
II. A IR HANDLING UNIT: FIRST PRINCIPLES MODEL
The investigated AHU unit comprises of heating and cooling
coil units. Only the cooling coil unit (CCU) is considered
in this paper, and this is depicted in Figure 1. A lumped
parameter approach is adopted. The CCU is assumed to
behave as a perfectly mixed vessel, therefore the outow water
temperature is the same as the mean temperature of the water
content of the coil. The energy balance on the water side of
the coil, is given by [3]
dTwo (t)
C =mw (t)cw [Twi (t) Two (t)]
dt
U A [Two (t) Tao (t)] , (1)
where C [J/K] is the overall thermal capacity (sum of water
and metal body thermal capacities), Two [K] outow water
temperature, mw [kg/s] water mass-ow rate, cw [J/kgK]
specic water thermal capacity, Twi [K] inow water temper-
ature, U [J/m2 K] overall heat transfer coefcient, A [m2 ]
effective surface of the coil, Tao [K] discharge (outow) air
temperature and t denotes time in [s].
The energy balance on the air side of the coil can be
expressed as
dTao (t)
Ca =U A [Two (t) Tao (t)]
dt
ma (t)ca [Tao (t) Tai (t)] . (2)
59
 True and discretised output
0
Twi , mw

y [ C]
Two 10
u
20

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

Valve stem position
Tai , ma Tao

u []
1
0.5
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
On-coil air temperature

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the cooling coil unit.
Here, Ca [J/K] is the air thermal capacity, ma [kg/s] is
the processed air mass-ow rate, ca [J/kgK] is the air
specic heat capacity and Tai [K] denotes on coil (inow) air
temperature. In order to further simplify the modelling task, it
is assumed that instantaneous heat exchange between the air
and cooling coil occurs, hence the temperature derivative on
the left hand side of (2) becomes null.
The valve installed on the plant has linear characteristics
in the range of 0, 30% and equal percentage in the range
of 30, 100% of the stem position. However, to simplify
the valve model, only a valve having linear characteristics is
assumed. The valve characteristic is dened as [4]
u(t)
u(t) =  . (3)
u2 (t) (1 Nv ) + N v
The fractional valve stem position, i.e. the control input, is
denoted u = 0, 1 and the effectively applied fractional
valve stem position is then u = 0, 1 given by (3). This
static nonlinearity is caused by the water pressures that are
developed around the installed valve in the pipe network and
is characterised by the so-called valve authority Nv = 0, 1
[]. Subsequently, the chilled water mass-ow rate is given
by mw = umw,max , where mw,max [kg/s] is the maximum
water mass-ow rate available when the valve is fully opened,
i.e. u = 1.
A. Model discretisation
The next step in the development of the reduced order
discrete-time model of the CCU is to, either, simulate the
continuous-time system governed by (1), (2) and (3), and
then attempt to obtain such a model by means of system
identication, or to directly discretise the continuous-time
system. The latter option is preferred here, since the governing
equations of the CCU are relatively simple. The backward Eu-
ler discretisation method is used to approximate the derivative
term in (1), i.e. dTwo (t)/dt  (Two (k) Two (k 1)) /Ts ,
where Ts [s] denotes the sampling time interval and k is the
discrete-time index. The selected inputs to the system are u
and Tai , and the system output is selected as temperature
difference between the on-coil and discharge air temperature,
i.e. y = Tao Tai . The discretised model of the CCU can be
Tai [ C]
60
40
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Time index (samples)
Fig. 2. The top plot shows simulated continuous-time system (grey solid line)
and discretised output (solid black line). The middle plot shows the fractional
valve stem position, while the bottom plot presents the on-coil air temperature.
The valve authority is Nv = 1 and the sampling interval is Ts = 1 [s].
obtained as
y(k) = a1 y(k 1) + b1 u(k 1)
+ 1 y(k 1)u(k 1) + b2 Tai (k) + b3 Tai (k 1)
+ 2 Tai (k 1)u(k 1). (4)
The constant model coefcients are denoted as a1 , b1,2,3
and 1,2 . Note the rst product term between the system
states y u. Such a product is well known to be a so-called
bilinear nonlinearity and is commonly encountered in heat
transfer processes, see [5]. Also note, that the valve static
nonlinearity acts on the selected system input u, which may
be characterised by a Hammerstein nonlinearity.
Equations (1), (2) and (3), describing the CCU, i.e. a
surrogate system, were implemented in Simulink software.
Subsequently, the system has been simulated such that Nv =
1, the simulation time is N = 5500 [s] and having the
following model parameters: C = 96324, cw = 3759, Twi =
273.15 + 5, U = 187.5, A = 21.2, ma = 2.4, ca = 1005,
Tai = 25, 60 + 273.15, u = 0.05, 0.8 and mw,max = 2.4.
The physical units of the above parameters are dened in
Section II. The simulation results are shown in Figure 2.
Since the discrete-time model (4) has been obtained directly
from the rst principles model, the discrete-time coefcients
are known and are as follows: a1 = 0.98, b1 = 16.39,
1 = 0.09, b2 = 0.62, b3 = 0.62 and 2 = 0.06 for a
sampling interval of Ts = 1. The discrete-time model (4) has
been also simulated and is represented in Figure 2 by a black
dashed line. It can be observed, that the discrete-time model
adequately represents the continuous-time CCU model. The t
between these two models is given in terms of coefcient of
determination, i.e.
 
||ysim (k) y(k)||2
RT2 = 100 1 [%], (5)
||y(k) E[y(k)]||2
where ysim is the simulated system output (by the discrete-
time model) and E[] denotes the mathematical expectation

60
 5
True and simulated output compared, a good model t is achieved RT2 = 99.87 [%].
10 Note, that the saturation type nonlinearity (4) is considered to
y [ C]

15 be difcult to be identied together with the bilinear model

20 at the same time, since such a saturation nonlinearity can be
25
partially explained by the bilinear model as well.
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Time index (samples) III. A IR HANDLING UNIT: REAL SYSTEM CONSIDERATION
Valve characteristics
1 The identication procedure introduced in Section II-B has
been applied to the actual CCU. Having two measured data
u []

0.5
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
u []
Fig. 3. The top plot shows simulated continuous-time system (grey solid
line) and identied discrete-time model (black dashed line). The bottom plot
shows the true (black solid line) and identied (black dashed line) valve static
characteristics. The valve authority is Nv = 0.1 and the sampling interval is
Ts = 1 [s].
operator. The model t, in terms of RT2 , is then RT2 = 99.99
[%] as expected.
B. Identication scheme
In practice, the exact shape of the valve static character-
istics (Hammerstein model) as well as the parameters of the
dynamic discrete-time model (4) are unknown and need to
be identied by means of system identication. It is assumed
that the Hammerstein model can be described by a 3rd order
polynomial, i.e.
u(k) = 1 u(k) + 2 u2 (k) + 3 u3 (k),
where 1,2,3 are coefcients to be estimated. It is known that
when u = 1 then u = 1, so that the appropriate scaling of the
Hammerstein model is 1 = 1 2 3 .
An optimization strategy is utilised to obtain both the
polynomial coefcients 1,2,3 and the dynamic model coef-
cients a1 , b1,2,3 and 1,2 . Here, at each step, the polynomial
coefcients are optimised and then the dynamic model is iden-
tied using the new transformed input u. The dynamic model
coefcients are estimated utilising the standard instrumental
variables method, see [6], and the polynomial coefcients are
obtained such that the following quadratic cost function is
minimised
N
2 tilation and air conditioning systems of a medical device manufacturer,
V = (y(i) ysim (i)) . (7)
i=1
The surrogate system of the CCU, see (1), (2) and (3) is
simulated having Nv = 0.1, which corresponds to a rather
severe case, since in practice a value of Nv of 0.4 or higher
would be expected corresponding to an almost linearly shaped
characteristic curve. A zero mean white measurement noise is
added to the simulated output yielding a signal-to-noise ratio
of SN R = 20 [dB]. Both, the measured and the simulated
system outputs are given in Figure 3 together with the true
and identied valve characteristics. When the noise free sys-
tem output and the simulated discrete-time model output are
sets, the rst data set (1 ) is used for system identication
only and the second data set (2 ) is used for model validation
1
only. With respect to the CCU slow dynamics the sampling
interval is chosen as Ts = 20 [s]. The identication results
are presented in Figures 4 and 5, for both the estimation and
validation data sets, respectively. A good model t has been
achieved with RT2 = 98.35 [%] for 1 and RT2 = 95.55 [%]
for 2 , respectively. The identied valve characteristics has a
S-shape (as expected). The estimated model coefcients are
as follows: a1 = 0.94(0.2 103 ), b1 = 1.39(0.6 103 ),
1 = 0.038(0.5 103 ), b2 = 0.86(3.5 103 ), b3 =
0.87(3.5 103 ), 2 = 0.16(0.6 103 ), 1 = 1.95, 2 =
4.10 and 3 = 3.15, where the standard deviations are given
in brackets.
IV. C ONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK
A simplied rst principles model of an AHU has been used
as a surrogate for the actual AHU located at ADC UK. Based
upon this an appropriate nonlinear discrete-time model of the
AHU has been obtained. A dedicated optimisation scheme
has been used for the parameter estimation of the proposed
discrete-time model. A good model t between the actual plant
(6) and the model has been reported.
In further work, the developed model will be used for
control optimisation of the PI/PID based temperature control
system at ADC UK. Also, such a structured nonlinear model
is highly suitable for model based control strategies, where
effective scheduling of control gains can be automatically
achieved. In this manner, the designed control performance
is fullled over a pre-selected range, rather than at the point
of tuning, as in the case when dealing with linear control
strategies.
R EFERENCES
[1] D. Hill, T. Danne, and K. J. Burnham, Modelling and control optimi-
sation of desiccant rotor dehumidication plant within the heating ven-
in Proc. 20th Int. Conf. Systems Engineering, Coventry, UK, 2009, pp.
207212.
[2] I. Zajic, T. Larkowski, D. Hill, and K. J. Burnham, Temperature model
of clean room manufacturing area for control analysis, in UKACC Int.
Control Conf., Coventry, UK, 2010, pp. 12511256.
[3] C. P. Underwood, Robust control of HVAC plant I: modelling, Building
services engineering research and technology, vol. 21(1), pp. 5361,
2000.
[4] , HVAC control systems: Modelling, analysis and design. London:
E.&F.N. Spon, 1999.
[5] S. Martineau, K. J. Burnham, O. C. L. Haas, G. Andrews, and A. Heeley,
Four-term bilinear PID controller applied to an industrial furnace, IFAC
J. Control Engineering Practice, vol. 12, pp. 457464, 2003.
[6] T. C. Hsia, System identication: least-squares methods. Lexington
Books, 1977.

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 Measured and simulated output (estimation data set)

5
y [ C]

10

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600

Valve stem position
0.5
u []

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
On-coil air temperature
28
Tai [ C]

26
24
22
20
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
Time index (samples)

Identied valve characteristics

1
u []

0.5

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
u []

Fig. 4. The top plot shows measured system output (grey solid line) and simulated output (black dashed line). The middle two plots show the fractional
valve stem position and the on-coil air temperature. The bottom plot shows the identied valve static characteristics. Estimation data set has been used. The
sampling interval is Ts = 20 [s].

62
 Measured and simulated output (validation data set)

4
6
y [ C]

8
10
12
14
0 200 400 600 800
Valve stem position
1000 1200 1400

0.4
u []

0.2

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400

On-coil air temperature
Tai [ C]

30
25
20
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Time index (samples)

Fig. 5. The top plot shows measured system output (grey solid line) and simulated output (black dashed line). The middle plot shows the fractional valve
stem position, while the bottom plot presents the on-coil air temperature. Validation data set has been used. The sampling interval is Ts = 20 [s].

63