A bioinspired approach for a multizone temperature control system

Abstract

Bioinspired design approaches seek to exploit nature in order to construct optimal solutions for engineering problems as uniform temperature control in multizone systems. The ideal free distribution (IFD) is a concept from behavioural ecology, which describes the arrangement of individuals in different habitats such that at equilibrium, all habitats are equally suitable. Here, we relax the IFD's main assumptions using the standing-crop idea to introduce dynamics into the supplies of each habitat. Then, we make an analogy with a multizone thermal system to propose a controller based on the replicator dynamics model, in order to obtain a maximum uniform temperature subject to constant power injection. Besides, we analytically show that the equilibrium point of the controlled system is asymptotically stable. Finally, some practical results obtained with a testbed and comparisons with the theoretical results are presented.