Implementation of novel occupant-centric control strategies in commercial buildings

拟议的项目将加强Concordia和Carleton大学的研究人员与BrainBox AI之间的合作关系，BrainBox AI是建筑自动化领域的领导者。该项目旨在继续开发“以乘客为中心的控制”算法，通过使用机器学习技术学习和预测乘客偏好，在能源效率和乘客舒适度之间取得平衡。特别是，该项目还将在现有的商业建筑中部署开发的算法，以展示和量化它们对降低能耗和改善居住者舒适度的影响。通过这些实际应用，拟议项目将识别和解决可能阻碍在现有建筑物中实施先进控制策略的技术和非技术障碍。该合作伙伴组织可以访问加拿大不同部门超过1800万平方英尺的建筑物，将利用这项研究的成果来补充其现有的智能建筑控制解决方案和算法库。最终，这些技术将为客户显著减少建筑物的能源使用和二氧化碳排放，这将加强他们作为将人工智能（AI）集成到建筑运营中的全球领导者的地位。研究成果也可以很容易地以最低的资本成本部署在加拿大超过50万座商业建筑中的许多建筑中，这些建筑总共消耗了大约40%的国家能源使用。此外，这种伙伴关系将为高素质人员（HQP）提供获得相关行业经验的独特机会，使他们能够充分了解与其研究相关的建筑系统和控制技术。他们将能够使用来自真实的建筑的数据，并与他们的系统和组件进行交互，同时获得建筑工程与建筑科学相结合的跨学科研究技能;这两者都是加拿大建筑业迫切需要的。

The proposed project will strengthen the partnership between researchers at Concordia and Carleton Universities with BrainBox AI, a Montreal-based leader in building automation. The project aims to continue the development of "occupant-centric control" algorithms which balance between energy efficiency and occupant comfort by using machine learning techniques to learn and predict occupant preferences. In particular, this project will also entail deploying the developed algorithms in existing commercial buildings to demonstrate and quantify their effect on reducing energy consumption and improving occupant comfort. Through these real-life applications, the proposed project will identify and address technical and non-technical barriers that may hinder the implementation of advanced control strategies in existing buildings. With access to more than 18 million building square feet of buildings across different sectors in Canada, the partner organization will leverage the outcomes of this research to complement their existing libraries of solutions and algorithms for smart building controls. Ultimately, these technologies will provide significant tangible reductions in buildings' energy use and CO2 emissions for their clients, which will strengthen their position as a global leader in integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) in building operations. Research outcomes can also be easily deployed at minimal capital cost in many of Canada's over half a million commercial buildings, which collectively consume approximately 40% of national energy use. Furthermore, this partnership will provide Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) with a unique opportunity to gain relevant industry experience that will allow them to fully understand building systems and controls technologies related to their research. They will be able to work with data from real buildings and interact with their systems and components, while gaining interdisciplinary research skills combining building engineering with building sciences; both of which are strongly and urgently needed in the Canadian building industry.