Multi-Physical Modeling
Optimal design & robust control through multi-physical modeling.
Our work involves the development of state-of-art modeling and simulation tools for complex, heterogeneous systems. We apply these models for the optimal design and robust control of a variety of systems including HVAC systems, zero-energy buildings, automobiles, and robotic systems.
Quick Links
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Researchers
Christopher R.
Laughman
Bingnan
Wang
Scott A.
Bortoff
Hongtao
Qiao
Ankush
Chakrabarty
Chungwei
Lin
Yebin
Wang
Gordon
Wichern
Vedang M.
Deshpande
Toshiaki
Koike-Akino
Dehong
Liu
Ye
Wang
Stefano
Di Cairano
Abraham
Goldsmith
Koon Hoo
Teo
Hassan
Mansour
Philip V.
Orlik
Kieran
Parsons
Arvind
Raghunathan
Hongbo
Sun
Abraham P.
Vinod
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Awards
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AWARD Best Paper Award at SDEMPED 2023 Date: August 30, 2023
Awarded to: Bingnan Wang, Hiroshi Inoue, and Makoto Kanemaru
MERL Contact: Bingnan Wang
Research Areas: Applied Physics, Data Analytics, Multi-Physical ModelingBrief- MERL and Mitsubishi Electric's paper titled “Motor Eccentricity Fault Detection: Physics-Based and Data-Driven Approaches” was awarded one of three best paper awards at the 14th IEEE International Symposium on Diagnostics for Electric Machines, Power Electronics and Drives (SDEMPED 2023). MERL Senior Principal Research Scientist Bingnan Wang presented the paper and received the award at the symposium. Co-authors of the paper include Mitsubishi Electric researchers Hiroshi Inoue and Makoto Kanemaru.
SDEMPED was established as the only international symposium entirely devoted to the diagnostics of electrical machines, power electronics and drives. It is now a regular biennial event. The 14th version, SDEMPED 2023 was held in Chania, Greece from August 28th to 31st, 2023.
- MERL and Mitsubishi Electric's paper titled “Motor Eccentricity Fault Detection: Physics-Based and Data-Driven Approaches” was awarded one of three best paper awards at the 14th IEEE International Symposium on Diagnostics for Electric Machines, Power Electronics and Drives (SDEMPED 2023). MERL Senior Principal Research Scientist Bingnan Wang presented the paper and received the award at the symposium. Co-authors of the paper include Mitsubishi Electric researchers Hiroshi Inoue and Makoto Kanemaru.
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News & Events
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NEWS Ankush Chakrabarty gave a lecture at UT-Austin's Seminar Series on Occupant-Centric Grid-Interactive Buildings Date: March 20, 2024
Where: Austin, TX
MERL Contact: Ankush Chakrabarty
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Control, Data Analytics, Dynamical Systems, Machine Learning, Multi-Physical Modeling, OptimizationBrief- Ankush Chakrabarty, Principal Research Scientist in the Multiphysical Systems Team, was invited to speak as a guest lecturer in the seminar series on "Occupant-Centric Grid Interactive Buildings" in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) at the University of Texas at Austin.
The talk, entitled "Deep Generative Networks and Fine-Tuning for Net-Zero Energy Buildings" described lessons learned from MERL's recent research on generative models for building simulation and control, along with meta-learning for on-the-fly fine-tuning to adapt and optimize energy expenditure.
- Ankush Chakrabarty, Principal Research Scientist in the Multiphysical Systems Team, was invited to speak as a guest lecturer in the seminar series on "Occupant-Centric Grid Interactive Buildings" in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) at the University of Texas at Austin.
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NEWS Ankush Chakrabarty served as Co-Chair of ACM BALANCES 2023 Date: November 14, 2023
Where: Istanbul, Turkey
MERL Contact: Ankush Chakrabarty
Research Areas: Control, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Multi-Physical Modeling, OptimizationBrief- Ankush Chakrabarty, Principal Research Scientist in the Multiphysical Systems team at MERL, served as Co-Chair at the 3rd ACM International Workshop on Big Data and Machine Learning for Smart Buildings and Cities (BALANCES'23). The workshop places spotlights on two different IEA EBC Annexes: the Annex 81 - Data-Driven Smart Buildings and Annex 82 - Energy Flexible Buildings Towards Resilient Low Carbon Energy Systems.
See All News & Events for Multi-Physical Modeling -
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Internships
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MS1958: Simulation, Control, and Optimization of Large-Scale Systems
MERL is seeking a motivated graduate student to research numerical methods pertaining to the simulation, control, and optimization of large-scale systems. Representative applications include large vapor-compression cycles and other multiphysical systems for energy conversion that couple thermodynamic, fluid, and electrical domains. The ideal candidate would have a solid background in numerical methods, control, and optimization; strong programming skills and experience with Julia/Python/Matlab are also expected. Knowledge of the fundamental physics of thermofluid flows (e.g., thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid mechanics), nonlinear dynamics, or equation-oriented languages (Modelica, gPROMS) is a plus. The expected duration of this internship is 3 months.
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EA2050: Electric Motor Design and Electromagnetic Analysis
MERL is seeing a motivated and qualified individual to conduct research on electric motor design and modeling, with a strong focus on electromagnetic analysis. Ideal candidates should be Ph.D. students with solid background and publication record in one more research area on electric machines: electric and magnetic modeling, new machine design and prototyping, harmonic analysis, fault detection, and predictive maintenance. Research experiences on modeling and analysis of electric machines and fault diagnosis are required. Hands-on experience with new motor design and data analysis techniques are highly desirable. Start date for this internship is flexible and the duration is 3-6 months.
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MS1851: Dynamic Modeling and Control for Grid-Interactive Buildings
MERL is looking for a highly motivated and qualified candidate to work on modeling for smart sustainable buildings. The ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of modeling renewable energy sources, grid-interactive buildings, occupant behavior, and dynamical systems with expertise demonstrated via, e.g., peer-reviewed publications. Hands-on programming experience with Modelica is preferred. The minimum duration of the internship is 12 weeks; start time is flexible.
See All Internships for Multi-Physical Modeling -
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Recent Publications
- "Physically-constrained Hybrid Modeling for Vapor Compression Systems", Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference, April 2024.BibTeX TR2024-038 PDF
- @inproceedings{Dong2024apr,
- author = {Dong, Yiyun and Qiao, Hongtao and Laughman, Christopher R.},
- title = {Physically-constrained Hybrid Modeling for Vapor Compression Systems},
- booktitle = {Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference},
- year = 2024,
- month = apr,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-038}
- }
, - "Physics-informed shape optimization using coordinate projection", Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-57137-4, Vol. 14, pp. 6537, April 2024.BibTeX TR2024-035 PDF
- @article{Zhang2024apr,
- author = {Zhang, Zhizhou and Lin, Chungwei and Wang, Bingnan},
- title = {Physics-informed shape optimization using coordinate projection},
- journal = {Scientific Reports},
- year = 2024,
- volume = 14,
- pages = 6537,
- month = apr,
- doi = {10.1038/s41598-024-57137-4},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-035}
- }
, - "Control Challenges and Opportunities in Building Automation" in The Impact of Automatic Control Research on Industrial Innovation: Enabling a Sustainable Future, February 2024.BibTeX TR2024-011 PDF
- @incollection{Bortoff2024feb,
- author = {Bortoff, Scott A. and Eisenhower, Bryan and Adetola, Veronica and O'Neil, Zheng},
- title = {Control Challenges and Opportunities in Building Automation},
- booktitle = {The Impact of Automatic Control Research on Industrial Innovation: Enabling a Sustainable Future},
- year = 2024,
- month = feb,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-011}
- }
, - "On the Characteristics of One-Dimensional Compressible Flow", International Modelica Conference, Dirk Müller, Antonello Monti, and Andrea Benigni, Eds., DOI: 10.3384/ecp204327, December 2023, pp. 327-336.BibTeX TR2024-001 PDF
- @inproceedings{Qiao2023dec,
- author = {Qiao, Hongtao and Kobayashi, Takashi and Laughman, Christopher R. and Bortoff, Scott A.},
- title = {On the Characteristics of One-Dimensional Compressible Flow},
- booktitle = {Proceedings of the 15th International Modelica Conference 2023},
- year = 2023,
- editor = {Dirk Müller, Antonello Monti, and Andrea Benigni},
- pages = {327--336},
- month = dec,
- doi = {10.3384/ecp204327},
- isbn = {978-91-8075-505-4},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-001}
- }
, - "Electric Machine Inverse Design with Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE)", IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), DOI: 10.1109/ECCE53617.2023.10362903, October 2023.BibTeX TR2023-134 PDF
- @inproceedings{Xu2023nov,
- author = {Xu, Yihao and Wang, Bingnan and Sakamoto, Yusuke and Yamamoto, Tatsuya and Nishimura, Yuki and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Wang, Ye},
- title = {Electric Machine Inverse Design with Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE)},
- booktitle = {IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE)},
- year = 2023,
- month = oct,
- publisher = {IEEE},
- doi = {10.1109/ECCE53617.2023.10362903},
- issn = {2329-3748},
- isbn = {979-8-3503-1644-5},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-134}
- }
, - "Reliability-based Sizing of Electric Propulsion System for Turboelectric Aircraft", IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON), DOI: 10.1109/IECON51785.2023.10312416, October 2023.BibTeX TR2023-129 PDF
- @inproceedings{Wang2023oct,
- author = {Wang, Yebin and Lin, Chungwei and Fang, Huazhen and Takegami, Tomoki},
- title = {Reliability-based Sizing of Electric Propulsion System for Turboelectric Aircraft},
- booktitle = {IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON)},
- year = 2023,
- month = oct,
- doi = {10.1109/IECON51785.2023.10312416},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-129}
- }
, - "Theoretical analysis of cycling losses in air source heat pump systems", International Congress of Refrigeration (ICR), DOI: 10.18462/iir.icr.2023.0765, September 2023.BibTeX TR2023-127 PDF
- @inproceedings{Qiao2023sep,
- author = {Qiao, Hongtao and Laughman, Christopher R.},
- title = {Theoretical analysis of cycling losses in air source heat pump systems},
- booktitle = {International Congress of Refrigeration (ICR)},
- year = 2023,
- month = sep,
- publisher = {INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF REFRIGERATION},
- doi = {10.18462/iir.icr.2023.0765},
- issn = {0151-1637},
- isbn = {978-2-36215-055-5},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-127}
- }
, - "A Virtual Testbed for Robust and Reproducible Calibration of Building Energy Simulation Models", 18th IBPSA International Conference and Exhibition Building Simulation, DOI: 10.26868/25222708.2023.1482, September 2023.BibTeX TR2023-114 PDF
- @inproceedings{Zhan2023sep,
- author = {Zhan, Sicheng and Chakrabarty, Ankush and Laughman, Christopher R. and Chong, Adrian},
- title = {A Virtual Testbed for Robust and Reproducible Calibration of Building Energy Simulation Models},
- booktitle = {18th IBPSA International Conference and Exhibition Building Simulation},
- year = 2023,
- month = sep,
- doi = {10.26868/25222708.2023.1482},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-114}
- }
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- "Physically-constrained Hybrid Modeling for Vapor Compression Systems", Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference, April 2024.
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