Innova: Nuova Pompa di Calore Residenziale

NPdCR (New Heat Pump for Residential buildings) is a three-year R&D project made in 2022 by Innova Engineering with FBK, founded by the local government Provincia Autonoma di Trento (Ref.: 2021-AG12-00783). The ultimate goal of this research project is to optimize the operation of heat pumps with advanced model-based design techniques, including optimization based on digital twins, model predictive control, requirements analysis of configurations with features models, anomaly detection and predictive maintenance, specification-driven fault detection, isolation, and recovery.

Extended description

“NPdCR” (New Heat Pump for Residential buildings) is a three-year R&D ciao project made in 2022 by Innova Engineering,

the Research and Development Centre of Innova Srl, in collaboration with FBK. The project was founded by the local government Provincia Autonoma di Trento through the provincial law 6/99 on funding for research and development of small and medium-sized enterprises (Ref.: 2021-AG12-00783).

Heat pumps are generally connected to systems that include heat transmission/absorption units from internal environments, such as fan coils, radiant floor systems, or other treatment units, and devices for the distribution of domestic water such as inertial accumulators, circulation pumps, and regulation systems.

The NPdCR project focuses on air-to-water heat pumps that offer the best compromise between performance and ease of installation. This allows their widespread use in most residential contexts.

The heat pumps currently most widespread on the market are derived from common air conditioners developed mainly in the Far East and in particular in Japan in the 70s and 80s. The integration of these devices with buildings is very complicated both for aesthetic and installation reasons. A further limitation of current heat pumps is due to electronic controls that do not provide advanced functions (especially adaptive ones) in coordinating their operation and in the interaction with users and other devices of the systems.

The ultimate goal of this research project is to optimize the operation of heat pumps with an advanced conceptual design that can be perfectly integrated with buildings.

The electronic control system previously developed by Innova was quite complete in terms of functions but developed with conventional technologies supported by software with only static rule-operating logics based on the knowledge of the components and the measurements obtained from experimental tests carried out during the design and development phases. Since the previous approach limited the development of advanced features, another important objective of the research is to rely on Model-Based techniques to develop dynamic and adaptive software capable of reacting in real time during the operation of the units, in order to optimize the operation. Furthermore, the application of advanced AI techniques enables predictive maintenance to reduce costs and downtime of operation. The control software is organized in the form of libraries of components and algorithms based on physical/thermodynamic models of the system, adapting the operation by comparing the real measurements with the measurements predicted by the models. Some components of the control system contain complex adaptive regulation functions through Model Predictive Control.

The project is split into Industrial Research and Experimental Development. These are the planned work packages:

• Industrial Research
  • WP1: Experimental analysis and requirements definition
  • WP2: Development of basic components with advanced control
  • WP3: Development of software, logic and system infrastructure
  • WP4: Models for mechanical, thermal, electrical and predictive characterization
• Experimental development
  • WP5: Development of a demonstrator
  • WP6: Process validation and functional testing

The project formally concluded at the end of 2024.

General Info

Start Date: 1 Nov 2021
End Date: 31 Oct 2024
Duration: 3 years
Funding: Provincia Autonoma di Trento (Ref.: 2021-AG12-00783)
Partners:

• FBK
• Innova Engineering

Contacts

Stefano Tonetta <>