Special Price for Michaela Killian

Since March 2016 Michaela Killian is a Post-Doc at the Institute of Mechanics and Mechatronics, Division of Control and Process-Automation, TU Wien, guided by Prof. Stefan Jakubek. During her doctoral research study named „ Cooperative Fuzzy model predictive control of a multi-zone office building“ she was supervised by Prof. Martin Kozek.

The research area of Michaela Killian is interdisciplinary and combines the fundamentals of mathematics and the practical application side in a demonstrative way. Her research focus is the development of nonlinear complex algorithm and methods for not only scientific but also applied problem formulations. The research of Michaela Killian is a direct benefit for the whole area of building automation: simultaneously two optimization goals has to be solved, the first to guarantee user-comfort in the building, and the second to minimize CO2, which is sustainable for the environment. With the new developed controller structure, these controversial optimization goals are solved and the optima is possible to be calculated. On the one hand, the research area of Michaela Killian is scientifically challenging, and on the other hand, the direct implementation in the industry (the real building) is from high importance. The overall motivation of this special developed controller is that state-of-the-art controllers in building automation are not able to include disturbances (radiance, ambient temperature, occupancy) and predictions in the optimization criteria. Furthermore, predictive controller schemes, as the new developed one, include thermal and technical constraints, thus, the controller is able to react in advance of future disturbances and the overall optima is energy-efficient as well as the user-comfort is guaranteed.

Since buildings are nonlinear dynamic systems, the controller design is based on a Fuzzy model predictive control concept (FMPC). During Michaela Killian‘s doctoral research study this FMPC was able to be extended to a cooperative Fuzzy model predictive controller scheme (CFMPC). For this new complex and flexible CFMPC the theory has been developed from scratch, everything has been proven, and the results were published in international scientific Journals. The results and proofs of the new CFMPC extend the whole Fuzzy model predictive control theory as an enormous advantage.

An additional publication, where previously unreleased results of her doctoral research study, has been accepted for presentation during the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI 16) in Vancouver, Canada, July 2016 (http://www.wcci2016.org/, opens an external URL in a new window). Michaela Killian uses her prize money to finance the flight to Vancouver and to pay the conference fee.