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Towards high-level fuzzy control specifications for building automation systems

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Abstract

The control logic underlying building automation systems has consisted, traditionally, of embedded discrete programs created using either low-level or proprietary scripting languages, or using general purpose fourth-generation visual languages like Simulink. It is also well known that programs developed in this way are hard to evolve, test, and maintain. These difficulties are intensified when continuous control problems have to be tackled or when the actuation must vary continually subject to the sensor inputs. Such is the case in day-lighting or occupancy-based control applications. In this paper, we propose a declarative high-level Domain-Specific Language that aims to reduce the effort required to specify the control logic of building automation systems. Our language combines fuzzy logic and temporal logic, enabling to define the behaviour in terms of domain abstractions. Finally, the approach has been validated in two ways: (i) in a case study that simulates the control system of an automated office room and (ii) by means of an empirical study to confirm usability (with a System Usability Scale questionnaire) and effectiveness, here regarded from the perspective of correctness, of the proposed language with respect to a well-known language like Simulink.

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Notes

  1. In a sense, this follows the classical modus ponens where the conclusion is obtained from the expression \(A\wedge (A\rightarrow B)\).

  2. https://gitlab.citius.usc.es/juan.vidal/fuzzy-temporal-dsl.

  3. https://www.eclipse.org/atl/.

  4. https://www.eclipse.org/modeling/m2t/?project=xpand.

  5. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/191915/factsheet/en.

  6. http://mathworks.com.

  7. More models, including complete controllers are available in the experiments memory at https://gitlab.citius.usc.es/juan.vidal/fuzzy-temporal-dsl.

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Acknowledgements

INESC-ID authors were supported by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) under contract UID/CEC/50021/2019. The authors would like to thank the COST Action IC1404 Multi-Paradigm Modeling for Cyber-Physical Systems (MPM4CPS) for the context and partial support to this work, as well as NOVA LINCS Research Laboratory (Grant: FCT/MCTES PEst UID/ CEC/04516/2013) and DSML4MAS Project (Grant: FCT/MCTES TUBITAK/0008/2014) “Modelação de Sistemas Sócio Ciberfísicos” FCT/DAAD - 2018/2019 (Poc. DAAD 441.00). IDMEC author was supported by FCT project UID/EMS/50022/2019. The CiTIUS author was also supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the project TIN2015-73566-JIN and by the Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria (accreditation 2016–2019, ED431G/08 and reference competitive group 2019–2021, ED431C 2018/29) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Investigación en Tecnoloxías da Información (CiTIUS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Juan C. Vidal

  2. INESC-ID, Instituto Superior Técnico, Unversidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Paulo Carreira & Joao Aguiam

  3. NOVA LINCS, DI, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Vasco Amaral

  4. IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal

    João Sousa

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  1. Juan C. Vidal
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Correspondence to Vasco Amaral.

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Communicated by John Fitzgerald, Peter Larsen, and Fuyuki Ishikawa.

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Vidal, J.C., Carreira, P., Amaral, V. et al. Towards high-level fuzzy control specifications for building automation systems. Softw Syst Model 19, 625–646 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-019-00755-8

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