Proceedings of the ASME 2016 Dynamic Systems and Control Conference
DSCC2016
October 12-14, 2016, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
A MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL LAW
FOR A VAPOR COMPRESSION CYCLE SYSTEM∗
Anhtuan D. Ngo†
Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, 45433
Email: anhtuan.ngo@us.af.mi
ABSTRACT
During the development of next generation tactical aircraft,
thermal management is given significant consideration due to
higher transient cooling demands, with stricter temperature
limits along with the smaller size and weight in the cooling
system hardware. Traditional control approaches, such as
proportional-integral-derivative (PID), are sufficient to achieve
the desired steady-state error performance for a thermal system
with no constraints on the control inputs. The traditional
control techniques may not be well-suited for thermal systems
with constrained inputs. In this paper, we apply the Model
Predictive Control (MPC) technique on an input-constrained
thermal system and examine the system performance under a
large transient thermal load and control input limits through
the anticipation of the known thermal load. The results include
design and implementation of an MPC controller for a high-
fidelity, nonlinear vapor compression cycle model, as well as
comparison of the MPC results to those of a finely tuned PID
controller.
INTRODUCTION
Motivation
Until recently, the traditional, passive cooling of aircraft sub-
systems, along with large built-in thermal margins at individual
thermal subsystems, has proven to be sufficient in managing the
vehicle’s internally generated heat. For future aircraft, such tra-
∗ PUBLIC
RELEASE CASE NUMBER: 88ABW-2016-1460
† CorrespondingAuthor
1 Copyright © 2016 by ASME
This work was authored in part by a U.S. Government employee in the scope of his/her employment.
ASME disclaims all interest in the U.S. Government’s contribution.
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DSCC2016-9769
Joshua R. Cory
University of Dayton Research Institute
Dayton, Ohio, 45469
Email: joshua.cory@udri.udayton.edu
ditional thermal management techniques of alleviating unwanted
heat at the subsystem level will be inadequate due to the in-
creased usage of power electronics, composite skin with low
thermal conductivity, and reduced ram air inlet size and num-
ber, coupled with the thin thermal margins due to weight and
size constraints. For better performance and reliability, a more
energy-efficient, more-electric future aircraft is being developed
with stricter constraints on the available size and weight on the
subsystems [1]. For the modern aircraft, the electrical loads de-
manded by the on-board weapons system can be unpredictable,
intermittent, short in duration, and high in frequency. Thermal
management of the future aircraft is therefore a critical design
consideration and, if not addressed successfully, can become a
limiting factor in the vehicle’s performance envelope [2]. Active
cooling using the Vapor Compression Cycle (VCS) is one way
to enable the future vehicle to fully utilize its design capabili-
ties. For such a system, an integrated method that involves man-
agement and control of the movement and disposal of unwanted
thermal energy at the subsystem and system level is necessary in
enabling the vehicle to operate in its full capability envelope. Ac-
tive cooling using the Vapor Compression Cycle System (VCS)
is one way to enable the future vehicle to fully utilize its design
capabilities.
Problem Definition
Thermal management for air vehicles has traditionally been
performed at the individual subsystem level since the pathways
for dissipation of locally generated heat are readily available. As
greater capabilities in terms of size, weight and power are envi-
sioned by the designers for future air vehicles, the electronic sub-
 systems for communication, control, actuation, life support, etc.,
are becoming more powerful and smaller in size, while light-
weight, composite airframe structures and skin are less thermally
conductive. These design factors along with a more stream-
lined configuration requirement make active cooling of subsys-
tems and integrated thermal management of the vehicle a pri-
mary consideration during the design process. The challenges in
active cooling and integrated thermal management can be seen
in meeting the transient cooling demands while being energy ef-
ficient at the same time. One solution toward these challenges
is to employ low-weight, high-capacity vapor compression cycle
systems (VCS) to deliver on-demand, intermittent cooling for the
vehicle. The VCS in this discussion has a variable compressor,
two controllable expansion valves, along with a condenser and
two evaporators. In this paper, we will apply the model predic-
tive control (MPC) technique on a high-fidelity, nonlinear model
of the VCS to track the temperature commands under the control
input constraints. The MPC control law fits well with the above
design goal of providing the cooling demanded while minimizing
compressor work, i.e. energy, under the constraints of the expan-
sion valve openings, compressor speed and coolant flow rate. In
an application setting, the use of proportional-integral (PI) con-
trol law is typically sufficient for a slow, weakly coupled VCS
dynamics, with additional on-line tuning for performance in the
presence of unmodeled system dynamics [3]. Sequential loop
closings for a multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) system with PI
controller to alleviate cross-couplings were used successfully to
control a thermal system [4]. This paper aims to shows the fea-
sibility and advantages of the MPC technique in optimizing over
the current time steps in the control horizon while keeping the
future time steps in the prediction horizon in account.
Gap 1: Large Dimension and Dynamics Coupling
Classical control design for the VCS, such as PI design, re-
lies on the designer’s practical insights into the system’s input-
to-output dynamics so that appropriate input-output pairings can
be leveraged. Controllers are sequentially developed to create a
feedback control loop between each of these input-output pair-
ings one at a time. The input-output pairings may be not be a
straightforward one-to-one mapping from the inputs to the out-
puts. Furthermore, in such decentralized methods, the cross-
coupling dynamics between the inputs and the outputs are only
considered by fine tuning of the control gains when the system
is simulated with all the control loops. For a system with a
small number of input-output pairings, this tried-and-tested de-
sign approach is tractable. However, the fine tuning task can be
time-consuming and iterative when the system is of high dimen-
sion [4]. When an analytical model of the system is not readily
available, the approach can also be used to design the PI con-
troller online for a stable system [5–8]. The MPC technique
consider simultaneously all the inputs and outputs of the sys-
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tem during the design process in return for requiring upfront a
plant model and a centralized control law implementation. For a
VCS, the MPC technique is more suitable since the system can
have multiple inputs and multiple outputs with a high degree of
couplings among themselves.
Gap 2: System Constraints
Linear models of a physical system do not reflect the ranges
of operations of its inputs and outputs. The resultant control law
derived from such models can command control inputs that are
outside of the operation ranges. This unwelcome feature of the
control law in commanding physically infeasible inputs is more
likely to occur when the design objective is to optimize an per-
formance index. This is because an optimal control law tends
to generate aggressive input signals that can be near or exceed
the operating limits of the physical plant inputs. Control input
saturation can have a destabilizing effect on the closed loop sys-
tem when it is implemented in hardware. The lack of considera-
tion for system constraints, as a result, forces the designer to be
conservative during the design process, and to include additional
margins into the hardware during the implementation and testing
of the closed-loop system, creating the unnecessary weight and
power. The MPC technique allows for the inclusion of the con-
straints on the inputs and outputs during the design process, thus
eliminating the design conservatism and its associated penalties.
Gap 3: Tool for Controller Tuning
An optimal controller for a high-dimensional, multi-input,
multi-output system can have many design parameters over
which to minimize the performance cost index. The design
parameters are associated with design weightings on the plant
states, its outputs, and inputs. By varying these design weight-
ings, the designer attempts to arrive at an optimal controller while
meeting all the system constraints. The lack of a systematic ap-
proach to vary the design weights makes it necessary for the de-
signer to perform the design weights tradeoff manually. Such
effort can be tedious and time-consuming. A more automatic
technique for controller design parameter selection is discussed
in this paper to reduce the controller design time.
Contributions
In this paper, we seek to address the aforementioned limita-
tions of the traditional control design approach by using a linear
model predictive control approach for a nonlinear, high dimen-
sioned vapor compression cycle system enabling the system to
track temperature commands under the constraints of inputs and
outputs while minimizing the compressor usage. The design ap-
proach is model-based and the design tools for system model
acquisition, controller design and simulation are from commer-
cially available software. The controller design process can be
 readily applied on other VCS configurations. The multi-input,
multi-output (MIMO) VCS under study exhibits cross-couplings
between its inputs and outputs, with physical constraints on its
control inputs. The contributions can be seen in the suggested
methods to manage the large number of system state, handle
the MIMO cross-couplings, optimize the control objective of
temperature command tracking, and meet the system constraints
while using a systematic approach to select the design parame-
ters.

Paper Outline
Two main points are discussed in the paper: Model descrip-
tion and MPC synthesis and design. The design tools, techniques
employed and model simplification are discussed in the model FIGURE 1. ATTMO VCS Model
description. The design approach discussion includes the MPC
formulation, closed-loop control results for the nonlinear model,
and performance comparison.

MODEL DESCRIPTION
Vapor Compression Cycle High-Fidelity Model
At the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), a Vapor Cy-
cle System Research Facility (VCSRF) was constructed to con-
duct experiments in control and thermal management techniques.
The VCS under study is a simplified version of the VCSRF and
is constructed from the MATLAB Simulink R TM
-based AFRL
Transient Thermal Modeling and Optimization (ATTMO) tool-
box [9–11]. The overall diagram of the system is shown in Fig-
ure 1. The operation and framework of the system can be de-
scribed as follows: heat is rejected to a mixture of 75% propylene
glycol and 25% water from the circulating refrigerant R134A at
the condenser (the red block near the top of Figure 1). Exiting
the condenser, the refrigerant passes through a flow distributer,
which diverts the refrigerant into 2 parallel paths, with each con-
FIGURE 2. Steady state P-h diagram of the VCSRF model
taining an identical electronic expansion valve (called EXV-4
and EXV-5 in [3]). The refrigerant then passes into evaporators
1 and 2 (called Panel 4 and Panel 5 Evaporators in [3]). In these
heat exchangers, heat is added to the refrigerant from the exter- valve openings are from 29.6% to 39.6%. Midpoint settings of
nal fluid polyalphaolefin (PAO), which is set to a constant inlet these control input ranges are used to operate the VCS for 2, 000
temperature and flow rate. Finally, the gaseous refrigerant passes seconds to achieve the steady-state operating point. Using the
into a flow junction, which merges the parallel streams and en- method to linearize and extract a design model discussed in [12],
ters the compressor, then returning to the condenser to restart the the linear model is then extracted. The equilibrium component
cycle. inlet conditions (except where noted) of this simulation are
provided in Table 1, with the pressure-enthalpy diagram of the
cycle in Figure 2.
VCS Linear Model Derivation
For the above VCS, we attempt to find a steady-state Once the nonlinear model has reached its steady state oper-
operating point to obtain the linear model and to design the ating condition, the linear model was generated using the Lin-
MPC. The steady-state operating point is found by considering earize function in the MATLAB Linear Analysis Tool Box [13].
the range of its control inputs. The compressor speed range For the current VCS, the resultant linear model had 132 states, 4
desired is from 7, 500 rpm to 8, 500 rpm, while the expansion outputs made up of Evaporator 1 oil exit temperature, Evaporator

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 Component Temperature Pressure Outlet Mass Flow Control Setting
Quality

Refrig. 71.2 ◦ C 1379.1 kPa 0 .1224 kg/s N/A

Condenser
Secondary 26.7 ◦C 248 kPa N/A .3025 kg/s N/A
Refrig. 10.27 ◦ C 418.2 kPa .9675 .0612 kg/s N/A
Evaporators
Secondary 65.6 ◦ C 248 kPa N/A 0.075 kg/s N/A
Expansion N/A 1379.1 kPa N/A N/A 34.6%
Valves
Compressor 10.27 ◦ C 418.2 kPa N/A N/A 8000 rpm

TABLE 1. System equilibrium conditions used for linear model derivation. N/A indicates that a given initial condition is not applicable to the listed
component

2 oil exit temperature, Compressor inlet pressure, Compressor Models Responses to Compressor Command at 800 second
outlet pressure. The 3 control inputs are the compressor’s speed 0.5
ATTMO Model
in revolutions per minute (rpm), Expansion Value 1 percentage Linear Model
opening, Expansion Valve 2 percentage opening. Essential steps
0
have to be taken to derive a model of the VCS that is conducive
toward developing the MPC controller [12]. These steps are dis-
Evaporator Temperature

cussed briefly below. −0.5

1. Scalings of Inputs and Outputs: Due to the different mea-
surement units employed for the inputs and outputs of the VCS,
large discrepancies in magnitudes between the control inputs ex- −1
ist. The differences can be seen between the large compressor
speed (from 7, 500 to 8, 000 rpm) and the small expansion valves −1.5
openings (from 29.6% to 39.6%). To avoid the numerical is-
sues that may arise in the linearization process we make use of
the use of scaling factors. A technique on input scalings given −2
in [12] was applied to extract a linear model.
2. Model Discretization and Reduction Model predictive control
−2.5
design is a iterative, finite-time horizon optimization of the se- 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200
Time (s)
lected performance index. A discrete-time model of the VCS is
therefore needed to describe the plant dynamics over this speci-
FIGURE 3. Comparison of Evaporator 1 response of the linear VCS
fied time horizon, called the prediction time horizon Tp , so that
model versus the ATTMO VCS Model
optimal control input signals can be calculated for the perfor-
mance index. Open loop analysis of the VCS system suggests
that with the sampling period Ts = 15 second, and the prediction
time horizon Tp = 17 seconds, the system dynamics and con- model.
trol bandwidth can adequately respond to input perturbations. A comparison of the Evaporator 1 temperature responses
As mentioned earlier, the VCS linear model has 132 states. A of the reduced-order linear model against the full-order linear
comparision of the linear and nonlinear models can be seen in model is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 3. With such high number of states, the computational
cost for the optimal control signals can be prohibitive, making it
impractical for hardware implementation. As such, model order Model Predictive Controller Design
reduction is necessary to speed up the calculation for the con- The model predictive controller is a finite horizon, optimal
trol law. In this design, a technique suggested in [12] is adopted controller design characterized by a performance index with re-
to reduce the model order from 132 to 16, after discretizing the ceding time horizons.
The performance index J is a scalar value to be minimized

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 Models Responses to Expansion Valve 4 Unit % Openning Command at 800 Second
1.5
Reduced Model
Full Linear Model  CT Qy C 0 x̂(k)
  
ŷT (k)Qy ŷ(k) = x̂T (k) x̂iT (k)

1 | {z } 0 Qi x̂i (k)
xT (k)
| {z } | {z }
Evaporator Temperature

a
Q xa (k)

0.5
In Eq. (1), we can rewrite the first four terms of the summation
as:
0

˜ = xaT (k)Qxk + uT (k)Ru(k) + δ u(k)T R2 δ u(k)

J(k) (2)
−0.5

−1
600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Time (s)
FIGURE 4. Reduced-Order Model Response to Unit Step Expansion
Valve
with the control input signal to the plant. For the VCS controller,
the performance index J is as follows:
k=N p
J = x̂T (N p )Px̂(N p ) + ŷT (k)Qy ŷ(k) + x̂iT (k)Qi x̂i (k) + · · ·
∑ example, changing the expansion valve opening requires much
k=1
uT (k)Ru u(k) + δ u (k)Rδ u δ u(k) + sT (k)Ss(k)
T
The performance index shown in Eq. (1) has a quadratic form,
similar to the linear quadratic regulator formulation. The first
term of the performance index J, x̂T (N p )Px̂(N p ), includes the
final values of the estimated controlled system states x̂(N p ) to
ensure the system states x are well-behaved at the final sample of
the prediction horizon N p . All the terms within the summation
are to ensure the output y(k), the integrator states xi (k), control
input u(k), and the changes in the control inputs δ u(k) provide
small temperature tracking error, stable system states, small con-
trol signals, and small changes in the control signals respectively.
The parameters s(k) is a slack parameter vector of the same di-
mension as the output y(k). The slack parameter s(k) soften the
constraints on y(k) so that violations are allowed with the penalty
on the performance index J.The designer’s choice of S influences
the availability of a feasible control u(k).
An automatic method to choose these design parameters can fa-
cilitate the overall MPC design process and can be seen as fol-
lows. At each sampling instance K in Eq. (1), we can rewrite the
first term of the summation as:
For the MPC design, the performance index J and the closed-
loop response of the VCS depend heavily on the designer’s
2200 choices for the design parameters P, Qy , Qi , Ru , and Rδ u . Taking
the terms in order in Eq. (2), the first term defines the cost of the
current state, where xa is the state vector x augmented with two
integrator states associated with two temperature tracking errors
e1,2 = Tc1,2 − T1,2 , and Q is a symmetric, positive definite matrix
of weights pertaining to each of the system states. The second
term similarly defines the cost of the control action, with u being
the control vector and R the symmetric, positive definite weight
matrix. Finally, the last term penalizes the rate of the control
actions, preventing the controller from attempting to move actu-
ators beyond their hardware limits.
Setting the weights of the cost function is largely a matter of
determining which control actions are preferable to others. For
(1) less energy than changing the compressor speed. Therefore, the
relative weight of the valves would be considerably lower than
that of the compressor. This intuitive approach works for the
second two terms, as all of the components in the vectors have a
physical meaning; Eq. (3) displays the weights set for the cost
function based on this approach, where ε = 2−52 .
   
10 0 0 0 5 0 0 0
 0 .001 0 0 0 5 0 0 
R= ,R =  (3)
0 2 0

0 0 ε 0 .001 0 
0 0 0 ε 0 0 0 .001
This approach becomes more difficult when determining the
weighting for the state vector because not all of the states have a
physical, intuitive meaning. It would be beneficial, therefore, to
have a way to systematically find a cost function weighting that
bring about the desired response.
Approach Since the Q matrix must be symmetric, pos-
itive definite, a baseline matrix was chosen which would have

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 these properties. The simplest version of this would be the iden- A gradient descent method (Eq. (8)) is then used to alter
tity matrix; however, during construction of the system model, the gain vector. However, since the system in question is not an
two states were added representing the integral of the error in analytic expression, F is unknown. In order to estimate ∇F, a
temperature output. For the system involved, the two output finite difference is calculated between the current point and the
temperatures affect one another, meaning it is appropriate to add previous point, as seen in Eq. (9).
cross-terms to these two states.The final structure of the baseline
matrix can be seen in Eq. (4).
wnew = wold − γ∇F (8)
 
100 ... 000
0 1 0
 ... 0 0 0 
0 0 1 ... 0 0 0
  wnew − wold
Qbase =  ... ... ... .. .. .. ..  (4) ∇F = (9)

 . . . .  Pnew − Pold
0 0 0
 ... 1 0 0 
0 0 0 ... 0 2 1
Care must be taken in establishing a value for γ, as allowing
000 ... 012
the second term of Eq. (8) to become too large can cause the sim-
ulation to simply crash. In order to prevent this, γ was selected
In order to set a final value for Q, Qbase can be multiplied by as the minimum of either the inverse of the magnitude of ∇F or
a diagonal matrix, W composed of gains w1 ...wn . In this case, 1. This limits the gradient descent to taking no more than a unit
since the final 2 states’ cost are cross coupled, the final 2 gains step in any direction. Plugging this into Eq. (8) results in Eq.
must be identical to maintain the symmetric, positive definite re- (10).
quirement on Q. This leaves the gain structure as seen in Eq.
(5).
1
wnew = wold − min( , 1)∇F (10)
k∇Fk
W = diag(w)
 
w1 This method still has a few flaws. Most problematic is the
 w2  fact that it can allow w to have values less than 0, violating the
  (5)
w =  ...  positive definite constraint on Q. To prevent this, a check was
 

wn−1 
 established. If any value of wnew goes below 0, it is replaced
wn−1 with half of the previous (positive) value.
Because of the way ∇F is estimated, the vector w essentially
moves back and forth along a line in Rn−1 . This means that occa-
sionally the figure of merit can increase for a number of iterations
before slowly working its way back down. In order to save time,
Q = QbaseW (6) the vector resulting in the best-so-far value of P is saved. If the
algorithm rises 3 times in a row, w is returned to the best-so-far
Gain Tuning Once an initial guess for w is selected, the value, and a new direction is randomly selected for testing. The
model predictive controller is generated via the YALMIP toolbox final overall algorithm can be seen in Eq. (11).
for Matlab. Testing the controller involves running a full nonlin-
ear simulation with a commanded step change in Evaporator 1’s
temperature setpoint. From the resulting data, a figure of merit
(
1
wold − min( k∇Fk , 1)∇F normally
is established. By combining the percent overshoot and settling y= N
time into a vector and taking the 2-norm of the result as seen in wbest + kNk if rising P
( (11)
Eq. (7), a single quantity can be used to represent the quality of yi normally
the controller response. wnew,i =
wold /2 if yi < 0

where N is a random vector in Rn−1 . This process is run

 
% Overshoot ∗ 100
P=k k (7)
Ts iteratively until some stop condition is met. In this case, the stop

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 condition dictated that none of the values in w changed more than
±10−4 . This is a rather tight condition that, in the future, could
be relaxed. The final gains achieved from this method can be
seen in Eq. (12).
 T
11.238 1.4986 .82476 1.5051 1.5232 .84537 . . .
w =  .95575 1.4059 1.5468 1.5542 .79597 1.5601 . . .
1.5464 .93945 6.0408 .80819 .83817 .83817
(12)
For this VCS, we design the MPC using two receding time hori-
zons:
1. Prediction Horizon N p consists of 17 sampling periods, with
each sampling period being 15 seconds long. The control
signal u(k) is calculated to minimize the quadratic perfor-
mance index J in Eq. (1) for N p = 12, subject to the the sys-
tem dynamics constraints, input constraints, input rate con-
straints, and output constraints:
2. Control Horizon Nc is smaller than the prediction horizon
N p , and consists of 15 sampling periods. It is over the con-
trol horizon Nc that the optimal control input signal u(k)
found for 0 < k ≤ Nc . For Nc < k ≤ N p , u(k) is set equal
to u(Nc ), i.e. u(k) = u(15) for k = 16, and 17. By having
Nc < N p by 2 sampling steps, we allows the transient effects
of the last control signal to propagate 2 time steps into the
future.
3. Constraints: The constraints used on the controller design
synthesis come from differenct sources. The first set of con-
straints is the controller design synthesis model Σa , shown
in Eq. (13), which is composed of the VCS plant dynamics
augmented with two integral states for the temperature track-
ing errors T4cmd − T4 and T5cmd − T5 respectively. In Eq. (13),
xa (k) is the augmented VCS model discrete state [x xi ]T at
sample time k, Aa is the augmented state matrix, Ba is the
augmented control input matrix, Ca is the augmented output
matrix, Da is augmented feed-through control input matrix,
Bd is the perturbation input matrix, Dd is the feed through
perturbation input matrix.

xa (k + 1) = Aa xa (k) + Ba u(k) + Bd v(k)
Σa : (13)
ya (k) = Ca xa (k) + Da u(k) + Dd v(k)
The second set of constraints, as shown in Eqs. (14 and
15), is associated with the maximum and minimum values
imposed on outputs ya (k) and inputs u(k) respectively. To
make the output constraints Ymin , and Ymax soft constraints,
a slack variable s(k) is included in Eqs. 14. With such soft
constraints, the ouput y(k) is allowed to go outside of its
maximum or minimum values so that the MPC optimization
algorithm is able to find a feasible control input u(k) solu-
tion under the penalty on the performance index J. In such
case, the term sT (k)Ss(k) imposes a non-zero term on the
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performance index J in Eq. (1). Without the soft constraints
setup for the output y(k), the MPC optimization algorithm
will return a no feasible control input u(k) solution when
y(k) is not within the Ymin and Ymax limits. In Eq. (1), the
positive-semidefinite matrix S is the design parameter that
can be varied to change the amount excursion outside of the
allowable range of the output.
Ymin − s(k) ≤ y(k) ≤ Ymax + s(k) (14)
Umin ≤ u(k) ≤ Umax (15)
CONTROL COMPARISON
As discussed earlier, the MPC controller is designed and
simulated for the nonlinear model of the VCS hardware. For
a baseline comparison, the MPC controller is compared against
a cycle-optimized PID controller designed and implemented by
Michalak et al. [3] for this VCS hardware. This proportional-
integral-derivative (PID) controller was optimized to reduce the
tracking errors when the input commands to the oil temperatures
of the evaporators 1 and 2 are given by changing the percentage
opening of the expansion valves 1 and 2. With the PID con-
troller, the desired inlet pressure of the compressor is maximized
by modulating its rotational speed, while the desired outlet dis-
charge pressure is achieved by adjusting the condenser cooling
fluid flow. Four PID controller loops were designed separately
to track the temperature and pressure commands. For this pa-
per, the performance of the optimized PID controllers serves as a
baseline against which the MPC controller is evaluated. Further-
more, the performance of an LQG controller for the same VCS,
detailed in [12] is also used as a basis for comparison to high-
light the improvement in performance achieved with the MPC
controller whereas the inclusion of the LQG results is to high-
light the MPC controller’s ability to look ahead and prepare for
commands that are known apriori, and under constrained control
inputs.
Tracking Performance
The improvement in tracking performance by the MPC con-
troller comes from the controller design formulation in which the
computation of the current control input into the plant is made
based on the closed-loop tracking responses of the plant over the
prediction horizon N p for the next 17 sampling periods under the
constraints defined in Eqs (13, 14, and 15). As such, control
activities of the expansion valves and the compressor are initi-
ated before the two simultaneous temperature command of 1.5◦
and 1◦ are given to the evaporators 1 and 2 respectively from
t = 500 seconds to t = 1800 seconds in the simulation. In Fig-
ure 6, the compressor can be seen to begin changing its rotational
speed at around t = 425 seconds in preparation for the step tem-
perature commands to come at t = 500 second. Similarly, the
 Overshoot Settling Time
Cntrl MPC LQG PID MPC LQG PID
Evaporator 1 Oil Exit Temperature
15
MPC
EXV1 0.20% 0.60% 3.96% 30 s 68 s 104 s
14.5 LQG
PID
14 EXV2 0.10% 2.49% 3.58% 40 s 48 s 104 s
13.5
Temperature (/ C)

13 Press. 0.50% 0.50% -0.32% 38 s 36 s 106 s

12.5

12 TABLE 2. Controllers Performance Comparison

11.5

11

10.5

10
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Actuator Control Activities
Time (s)
From Figure 6, the MPC and LQG controllers appear to have
the speed when the temperture commands are initiated. How-
15
Evaporator 2 Oil Exit Temperature ever, under the MPC controller, the compressor begins speeding
14.5
MPC
LQG
up before the temperature commands start, allowing for better
PID
14 tracking with little overshoot. When compared to the PID con-
13.5
troller, there is a difference of 1600 rpm in the compressor speed.
Temperature (/ C)

13
The modulation of the compressor speeds during the temperature
12.5

12
11.5
11
10.5
10
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Time (s)
FIGURE 5. Oil Exit Temperatures Under Different Controllers
openings of the Expansion Valves 1 and 2 also begin to change
around t = 425 seconds in anticipation of the step temperature
commands. These control actions by the compressor and the ex-
pansion valves allow for the closed-loop VCS under the MPC
controller to track the temperature commands with very small
overshoot and undershoot. A comparison of the tracking per-
formances of the three controller can be seen in Figure 5. Un-
der the PID controller, the VCS has more overshoot in tracking
the temperature commands. Temperature overshoots also occur
when the VCS is controlled by the LQG controller. Very lit-
tle overhshoot is observed when the system is controlled by the
MPC controller. The differences in temperature shoots are due
to the facts that the PID controller is a single-input, single output
controller with sequential loop closure for each input-output pair
while the LQG controller is a multi-input, multi-output (MIMO)
controller and thus it is able to cross coupling betwen inputs and
outputs. The MPC controller, on the other hand, has the advan-
tage of a MIMO controller and the ability to include known fu-
ture disturbances in the current control input computations. Ta-
ble 2 summarizes the overshoots and undershoots of their time
responses to these temperature step commands.
commands are similar. Looking at the expansion valves time re-
sponses in Figure 7, there is also an offset by around 2% at the
begining under the PID controller vs. the MPC and LQG con-
trollers at t = 500 seconds. Two step temperature commands of
1600 1800 2000
1.5◦ C and 1◦ C to the VCS cause the three controllers to reduce
the openings of the expansion valves as seen in Figure EXVAc-
tion. As expected, the MPC and the LQG controllers regulate
the expansion valves in similar manners while the PID controller
commands to the expansion valves to a different opening posi-
tion. However, all controllers command the expansion valves to
increase their openings by the same amount. Once the step tem-
perature commands are removed, both expansion valves return
to their steady-state values. Figure 8 shows the pressures of
the compressor on the condensor side and evaporator side under
the three controllers. For the MPC and LQG controllers, these
pressure time histories are very similar since they have the same
initial trim values and both controllers have the same objective
functions. However, when these pressure responses are com-
pared with that of the PID-controlled plant, there are small differ-
ences in the inlet and outlet pressures of the compressor (418.8
kPa vs. 386.1 kPa for inlet pressure, and 1362.4 kPa vs. 1378.9
kPa for the outlet pressure) because the PID controller is tuned
to optimize the inlet pressure. From the time of the initiation of
the temperature commands at t = 500 seconds to the termination
of the commands at t = 1750 seconds, the MPC controller and
LQG controller are similar to each other, but different to that of
the PID due to different initial trim state values. A more interest-
ing feature of the MPC controller is that the pressures at the inlet
and outlet of the compressor begin to change in anticipation of
the temperature commands. These anticipatory compressor ac-
tivities can be seen before t = 500 seconds in Figure 8. After
the temperature command inputs return to zero at t = 1750 sec-

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 Compressor Speed vs Time Expansion Valve 4 Percent Open vs Time
10000 50
MPC
LQG
PID
MPC 45
LQG
PID

Opening (%)
9500 40

35

9000 30

25
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Speed (rpm)

Time (s)
8500

Expansion Valve 5 Percent Open vs Time

50
MPC
LQG
PID
8000 45

Opening (%)
40

7500 35

30

7000 25
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Time (s) Time (s)

FIGURE 6. Control Activities of Compressor Speed FIGURE 7. Control Activities of Expansion Valves

onds, the closed-loop plant returns to its acquiescent state under
all three controllers.
Coefficient of Performance
It is noted that the closed-loop VCS’s coefficient of perfor-
mance (COP) is not directly maximized in the control synthesis
for all three controllers. Instead, tracking performance is opti-
mized by minimizing the resultant errors. The COPs under dif-
ferent controllers are analyzed as a fall-out results from the con-
trollers. The steady-state COP is given as:
Q̇loads ṁ1C p (∆T1 ) + ṁ2C p (∆T2 )
COP = = (16)
Ẇcomp (ṁc )(h1 − h5 )
where Q̇loads is the heat rate dissipated by the evaporators, Ẇcomp
is the power used by the compressor, ṁc is the total refrigerant
flow rate through the compressor, and h1 and h5 are the refrig-
erant enthalpy values at the compressor outlet and inlet, respec-
tively. Using Eq. (9), the COP of the closed-loop VCS under the
MPC, LQG and PID controllers are computed and shown in Fig-
ure 9. The COP of the closedloop VCS under the MPC and LQG
controllers are very similar and are also higher than that of the
closed-loop system under the PID controller. The higher system
COP under MPC and LQG is desirable and is an indirect result of
an optimal controller whose performance index includes control
signal norms as seen in Eq. (1).
Conclusion
In this paper, we have applied the Model Predictive Con-
trol design technique on a constrained linear model of a vapor
compression system. The controller design synthesis include
a linear model with limited control inputs, limited rates of the
control inputs, limited system outputs. The MPC controller is
a discrete controller with a finite prediction horizon (Np = 17
sampling periods) and a finite control horizon (Nc = 15 sam-
pling periods). The performance index J includes the norms of
state values, output values, input values, rates of input values,
and output slack varlues. The linear model of the VCS are rep-
resented as constraints along with other constraints such as the
input constraints, output constraints, and input rate constraints.
While the input constraints are hard constraints, the output con-
straints are soft constraints, made possible by the inclusion of the

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 Condensor Side Pressure Coefficient of Performance
1400 5

1390 MPC
LQG
1380 PID
4.8
1370
Pressure (kPa)

1360

1350 4.6

1340

1330
4.4
1320 MPC
LQG
1310 PID

4.2
1300
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Time (s)

COP
4

Evaporator Side Pressure

460
3.8
MPC
450 LQG
PID

440
3.6
Pressure (kPa)

430

420 3.4

410

400 3.2

390

380 3
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Time (s) Time (s)

FIGURE 8. System Pressures under Different Controllers FIGURE 9. VCS Coefficients of Performance under Different Con-
trollers

slack variables in the performance index J. The controller design

synthesis model includes two additional states corresponding the tion, number AIAA-2010-0287, Jan 2010.
integral states of the tracking errors. The temperature tracking [3] Travis Michalak, Stephen Emo, and Jamie Ervin. Control
performance of the closed-loop system with the MPC controller strategy for aircraft vapor compression system operation.
is compared with those of the same system under an LQG and International Journal of Refrigeration, 48:10–18, Decem-
PID controllers. The MPC-controlled VCS has the best tracking ber 2014.
performance, followed by the LQG-controlled VCS, and PID- [4] Neera Jain, Bin Li, Michael Keir, Brandon M. Hencey, and
controlled VCS respectively. The MPC has a better performance Andrew G. Alleyne. Decentralized feedback structures of
because it is able to look ahead over the prediction horizon to a vapor compression cycle system. IEEE Transactions on
prepare for command input occurring during this time period. Control Systems Technology, 18(1):185–193, January 2010.
[5] Daniel T Pollock, Zehao Yang, John T Wen, Yoav Peles,
and Michael K Jensen. Modeling and control of single and
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