IoT-Based Smart Building Environment Service for Occupants’ Thermal Comfort

Abstract

This paper presents an Internet of Things (IoT) platform for a smart building which provides human care services for occupants. The individual health profiles of the occupants are acquired by the IoT-based smart building, which uses the accumulated knowledge of the occupants to provide better services. To ensure the thermal comfort of the occupants inside the building, we propose a dynamic thermal model of occupants. This model is based on the heat balance equation of human body and thermal characteristics of the occupants. We implement this model in two smart building models with heaters controlled by a temperature and thermal comfort index using MATLAB/Simulink®. The simulation results show that the thermal comfort-based control is more effective to maintaining occupants’ thermal satisfaction and is therefore recommended for use providing human care services using IoT platforms in smart buildings.