An Integrated Mobile Sensor System for Occupancy and Behavior Driven Building Energy Management

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The research objective of this award is to test the hypothesis that interactive, sensor monitoring and online control can significantly reduce the energy consumption of buildings (by 20 percent or more) while maintaining occupant comfort. Through simulations and experimentation, inputs from a wide range of modalities and platforms in a heterogeneous sensor system (including wired and wireless sensors; mobile and static sensors; automatic and human-input-based sensors) will be integrated and fused in order to measure and track indoor climate, energy usage, as well as occupant location, activities, and preferences with much higher accuracy and lower cost compared to homogeneous systems. The research will encompass mathematical and empirical analysis and evaluation of efficient online stochastic algorithms based on multi-armed bandit theory that take the integrated sensor measurements as input to learn over time how to automatically operate building controls, so as to minimize energy consumption while maintaining occupant comfort, and quantify the gains in energy consumption obtained in typical environments. If successful, the research will establish a framework, where humans and building systems interact ubiquitously in real time through an integrated mobile sensor and control system for energy awareness and learning and energy efficiency in buildings. The results will be disseminated through and contribute to the civil and environmental engineering, electrical engineering and computer science curricula, multiple conference talks, and publications. A public outreach and energy education program is planned to raise public awareness on energy efficiency in buildings. Targeting K-12 classrooms, this program aims to attract minority students to the engineering profession in the greater Los Angeles area. An interactive game, focusing on teaching K-12 students how they can conserve energy in their daily life by modifying their behavior and habits will be prototyped and tested.