A REAL-TIME PREDICTIVE SCHEME FOR CONTROLLING HYGROTHERMAL CONDITIONS OF NEONATE INCUBATORS

This work is focused on hygrothermal control problem of closed newborn incubators. Such incubator promotes a controlled micro-climate, with small heat transfer between the premature and the environment, which promotes a healthful environment. In this context, the main hygrothermal informations are temperature, relative humidity and partial vapor pressure where the last one is closed related with the water loss by transpiration. A model predictive control scheme for this problem is presented and real time closed-loop control examples validate the proposed method in such a context. The identification procedure, a need in model based control schemes, is based on the use Laguerre functions and the experiments are performed on a laboratory pilot plant (full scale) which was built to evaluate control algorithms in incubators.