4.3.2. Controller Start-Up

The controller needs to be instantiated once the system model has been specified. During this process, the software loads and initializes all the components including the MPC model, the optimization problem, the system states (measured temperatures and SOC), the inputs (outdoor dry bulb temperature, solar radiation, grid signals and constraints) and the outputs (setpoints), based on the configuration. The objective function and associated constraints to grid signals, as summarized in Table 1, are automatically updated according to the goal of each experiment. At every control interval, the software calls the instantiated controller to solve the optimization problem and pushes the solutions to the respective devices over WAVEMQ. A single instance of the controller can handle different types of grid signals and only requires re-instantiation when configuration parameters (e.g., new input sources and modified outputs) are changed.
