Personalized Building Comfort Control

Abstract

In exemplary implementations of this invention, control apparatus for a HVAC system provides personalized comfort control. It can adjust local conditions in different rooms within a building in order to maximize the perceived comfort of individual occupants. The control apparatus locates individuals within a building. For each individual, it senses temperature, humidity and other parameters at the individual's location, calculates a comfort metric indicative of the user's comfort, and can control the flow of chilled or heated air to the individual's location in order to adjust local conditions to maximize the individual's comfort.

1 . A system that comprises, in combination:
 input devices for accepting inputs from a plurality of humans,   sensors for taking sensor measurements, the sensor measurements including measurements of temperature,   at least one processor for:
 processing data indicative of the inputs and the sensor measurements, 
 calculating position values, 
 calculating comfort values indicative of comfort of at least some of the humans, and 
 generating control signals, based at least in part on at least some of the comfort values, and 
   at least one actuator for mechanically moving, in accordance with the control signals, one or more objects to alter air flow.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the sensor measurements also include measurements of humidity. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein at least some of the sensors are positioned in or on portable nodes, at least one sensor per portable node, which portable nodes are adapted to be carried or worn. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein at least some of the sensors are located in fixed positions. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 4 , wherein at least some of the sensors in fixed positions are located inside of a building and at least some of the sensors in fixed positions are located outside of the building. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the position values are calculated based, at least in part, on data indicative of at least some of the sensor measurements. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the sensor measurements include measurements of received signal strength of wireless radio transmissions from the portable nodes, and the position values are calculated based, at least in part, on data indicative of the measurements of received signal strength. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the sensor measurements include measurements of inertial activity of the portable nodes, and the position values are calculated based, at least in part, on data indicative of the measurements of inertial activity. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein at least some of the human inputs are values indicative of human sensory perception. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 9 , wherein at least some of values are indicative of perceived temperature. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the sensor measurements include measurements of ambient light level. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 6 , wherein at least some of the sensors are passive infrared sensors in PIR motion detectors. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is adapted to generate comfort values by using an algorithm that employs linear discriminant analysis or a Fisher linear discriminant. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is adapted to calculate a decision boundary, to calculate comfort values indicative of distance from that decision boundary, and to update calculations of the decision boundary based on updated measurements. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 14 , wherein the decision boundary is calculated as the mean of at least some extreme values. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein at least some of the position values are indicative of the position of at least some of the humans, respectively. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein at least some of the position values are indicative of the position of at least some of the portable nodes, respectively. 
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor, when calculating position values, is adapted to take into account data transmitted wirelessly by a cellphone, smart phone or other mobile computing device. 
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one actuator comprises multiple actuators, at least some of which are each adapted to alter air flow through a VAV box. 
     
     
         20 . A method that comprises, in combination:
 using input devices to accept inputs from a plurality of humans,   using sensors to take sensor measurements, the sensor measurements including measurements of temperature,   using at least one processor:
 to process data indicative of the inputs and the sensor measurements, 
 to generate position values indicative of the position of at least some of the humans, 
 to generate comfort values indicative of comfort of at least some of the humans, and 
 to generate control signals, based at least in part on at least some of the comfort values, and 
   using at least one actuator to cause, in accordance with the control signals, mechanical motion of one or more objects to alter air flow.