Predictively controlling an environmental control system

A method, comprising:

• simulating, via a processor, control trajectories to control an environmental control system of a structure for a forthcoming period of time using upper confidence bound for trees (UCT), wherein each control trajectory is simulated by selecting a control action to control the environmental control system at each of a plurality of time steps for the forthcoming period of time based on the highest upper bound on possible performance using rewards from previous simulations;
• determining, via the processor, a reward for each control trajectory;
• selecting, via the processor, a control trajectory with the highest reward as the control trajectory to apply to control the environmental control system;
• and
• controlling, via the processor, the environmental control system using the selected control trajectory.

A system, comprising:

• an environmental control system;
• and
• an electronic device, comprising a processor, the processor being configured to:
• control the environmental control system of a structure by applying a control trajectory, wherein the control trajectory is selected from a plurality of candidate control trajectories simulated using upper confidence bound for trees (UCT) based on having the highest value as determined by a cost function, each of the plurality of candidate control trajectories including a selected control action at each of a plurality of time steps over a period of time and a predicted temperature trajectory resulting from applying each control action at each of the plurality of time steps according to a thermal model of the structure.

An electronic device, comprising:

• a power source configured to provide operational power to the electronic device;
• and
• a processor coupled to the power source, the processor being configured to:
• iteratively simulate candidate control trajectories to control an environmental control system of a structure using upper confidence bound for trees (UCT), wherein each candidate control trajectory is simulated by selecting a control action to control the environmental control system at each of a plurality of time steps over a period of time that has the highest upper bound on possible performance using value estimates from previous simulations and predicting a temperature for a next time step of the plurality of time steps that results from applying the selected control action using a thermal model of the structure;
• determine a value estimate of each candidate control trajectory using a cost function and update the value estimate of each control action selected in each candidate control trajectory;
• select a control trajectory with the highest value using UCT;
• and
• apply the selected candidate control trajectory to control the environmental control system.

A method, comprising:

• iteratively simulating candidate control trajectories, via a processor, to control an environmental control system of a structure using upper confidence bound for trees (UCT), wherein each candidate control trajectory is simulated by selecting a control action at each of a plurality of time steps over a period of time that has the highest upper bound on possible performance using value estimates from previous simulations and predicting a temperature for a next time step of the plurality of time steps that results from applying the selected control action using a thermal model;
• determining a value estimate of each candidate control trajectory using a cost function and update the value estimate of each control action selected in each candidate control trajectory;
• selecting a control trajectory with the highest value using UCT;
• and
• applying the selected candidate control trajectory to control the environmental control system.