Integrated building control based on occupant behavior pattern detection and local weather forecasting

Standard office building control systems operate the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning on a fixed schedule, based upon anticipated occupancy and use of the building. This study introduces and illustrates a method for integrated building heating, cooling and ventilation control to reduce energy consumption and maintain indoor temperature set points, based on the prediction of occupant behaviour patterns and local weather conditions. The experiment test-bed is setup in the Solar Decathlon House (2005), with over 100 sensor points. The results show that there is a 17.8% measured energy reduction in the cooling season test case.