Cloud-based hardware-in-the-loop testing of building automation controllers

This paper aims to fill the gap in knowledge about building control testing, thus encouraging control evaluation, to ultimately improve energy efficiency in building operation. A hardware controller and its digital twin are tested in real-time in a separate platform in the cloud, and the results are analyzed to determine what insights can tests on virtual controllers give about the behaviors of their real-life hardware counter-parts. Key performance indicators (KPIs) from literature are used to evaluate the control. It is shown that although the controllers differ in their control output time-series, their overall performance profile along the entire simulation run follows a similar pattern (KPI percent error varies between 3% and 8%). This implies that virtual controller testing can be a good indicator of hardware controller behavior.