Occupant-Detection-Based Individual Control of Four-Way Air Conditioner for Sustainable Building Energy Management

Joon-Hee Ham, Bum-Soo Kim, In-Woo Bae and Jaewan Joe ()
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Joon-Hee Ham: Department of Architectural Engineering, INHA University, Incheon 22212, Republic of Korea
Bum-Soo Kim: Department of Architectural Engineering, INHA University, Incheon 22212, Republic of Korea
In-Woo Bae: Department of Architectural Engineering, INHA University, Incheon 22212, Republic of Korea
Jaewan Joe: Department of Architectural Engineering, INHA University, Incheon 22212, Republic of Korea

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: In this study, individual control of a four-way air conditioner was developed based on the distribution of occupants to prevent unnecessary energy consumption during room-wide control. An occupancy detection algorithm was created in Python using YOLOv5 object recognition technology to identify the occupants’ distribution in space. Recorded video data were used to test the algorithm. A simulation case study for a building energy model was conducted, assuming that this algorithm was applied using surveillance cameras in commercial buildings, such as cafés and restaurants. A grey-box model was established based on measurements in a thermal zone, dividing one space into two zones. The temperature data for the two zones were collected by individually turning on the air conditioner for each zone in turns for a specific period. Manual closure was applied to each supply blade using a tape to provide cooling to the target zone. Finally, through energy simulations, the decreased rates in energy consumption between the proposed individual control and existing room-wide controls were compared. Different scenarios for the occupants’ schedules were considered, and average rates in energy savings of 21–22% were observed, demonstrating the significance of individual control in terms of energy consumption. However, marginal comfort violations were observed, which is inevitable. The developed control method is expected to contribute to sustainable energy management in buildings.

Keywords: object recognition technology; occupant distribution; occupancy-based air-conditioning; grey-box model; four-way air conditioner; sustainable building energy management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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