Building occupant comfort monitoring through Digital Twins using plug-and-play IoT sensors

Abstract

Buildings globally consume approximately 40% of total energy, primarily directed towards heating and cooling systems for thermal comfort maintenance. However, real-time assessment of thermal comfort is often impractical due to the complexities of models requiring measurement or estimation of various environmental and personal variables. There are several studies focusing on conceptual models and implementation of Digital twin (DT) in Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Facility Management (AEC-FM). DTs, despite their potential for real-time visualization and analysis of building data, have not been adequately employed for real-time comfort monitoring. This research aims to address this gap and proposes a solution to implement a DT system for real-time comfort monitoring of the built environment. The solution enhances occupants' comfort by enabling facility managers to monitor comfort levels. In the case study, a DT system is implemented to assess the applicability of the proposed solution. The implemented system integrates a plug-and-play Internet of Things (IoT) sensor network with Building Information Modeling (BIM) to create a DT, which functions as a tool for realtime comfort monitoring of occupants. The plug-and-play network of IoT sensors collects data on environmental variables. The collected data is automatically mapped into corresponding rooms in the DT system. Moreover, a real-time comfort monitoring dashboard is designed and integrated into DT’s user interface, providing real-time insight into the comfort levels of each room, enabling facility managers to take action in response to the building's conditions.

Date	24 Apr 2024
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Ali Motamedi (Supervisor)