Field Study of Thermal Infrared Sensing for Office Temperature Control

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of a novel office temperature control system. To make occupants more comfortable with less energy, we have been developing a new system that uses an inexpensive infrared camera to evaluate occupants' thermal sensation and optimize room te...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ASHRAE transactions 2023-07, Vol.129 (2), p.72-80
Main Authors: Nomoto, Akihisa, He, Yingdong, Prickett, Robert, Kim, Donghun, Huizenga, Charlie, Swaminathan, Sri, Zhang, Hui, Arens, Edward, Levinson, Ronnen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cameras
Control algorithms
Control systems
Cooling
Energy consumption
Hands
HVAC
Infrared cameras
Infrared imagery
Performance evaluation
Room temperature
Skin
Skin temperature
Temperature
Temperature control
Thermal comfort
Thermal imaging
Weather forecasting
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Summary:The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of a novel office temperature control system. To make occupants more comfortable with less energy, we have been developing a new system that uses an inexpensive infrared camera to evaluate occupants' thermal sensation and optimize room temperature. The system (1) detects the positions of a person's face, nose, and hands in a thermal image taken by an infrared camera and measures temperatures in those areas; (2) predicts thermal sensation using measured skin temperatures; and (3) adjusts an HVAC set-point temperature based on the predicted sensation to optimize occupant thermal comfort. We compared comfort and energy performance of the new system to conventional control using a fixed setpoint of 72.0 [degrees]F (22.2 [degrees]C) in a small conference room. The results indicate that the conventional control often overcooled the occupants, whereas our system reduced cooling energy consumption and made the occupants more thermally neutral and comfortable than the conventional control.
ISSN:0001-2505