Occupant‐centric ventilation control in mid‐sized buildings

The type and performance of control is an important aspect to optimise the performance of ventilation systems. Currently, relatively simple schedule based systems remain the most common control strategies in buildings. This also applies to ventilation systems where system set points are often based on time schedules. Demand controlled ventilation is more intelligent because it responds to real time measurements of CO2 or room temperature. However, to improve the user’s satisfaction, feedback of the users on the received IEQ needs to be included in the control. Occupant‐centric control is a control system that acquires various data from occupants, the indoor environment, and outdoor climate, and learns or derives useful information for building control, e.g., room occupancy patterns and adaptive set‐points. There are still a lot of challenges ‐ like what occupancy information is needed to make relevant control decisions, the robustness of the occupant centric control to unanticipated occupant behavior and multiple building types‐ that need to be overcome before an occupant‐centric control can be successfully implemented. The goal of this research is to create and demonstrate a robust occupant‐centric ventilation control approach. This approach includes the quantification of user’s satisfaction to the indoor environment, determination of the required occupancy information (presence, preference, interactions with building and system). Guidelines to adapt the set points of the ventilation system design to the user’s preference will be formulated.