Bayesian Model of Multisensory Comfort and Adaptation in Intelligent Building

Abstract

Understanding a building's ambiance and user's preferences and then providing corresponding comfort is substantial in a smart home environment. In this work, we aim to design a model for an intelligent system (building) controller whose intelligence is adaptation, in changing situations, according to the preferences of occupants without their intervention. Adaptation, according to Humphreys is: "If a change occurs such as to produce discomfort, people react in ways which tend to restore their comfort". Therefore, our adaptive system restores comfort to the occupants based on their preferences, it has the ability to self-regulate and adapt to the climate conditions in buildings. In order to use adaptive control a model of the building is necessary and predictive control is very important because it includes a model for future disturbances. The starting point of this work was the modeling of multisensory comfort, and, the dynamic and adaptive behavior of an occupant with his environment. A key element was to find a way to model these adaptive actions. To achieve our goal, we used Bayesian networks that are powerful tools for decision and reasoning under uncertainty.

Comfortable seating: The influence of seating comfort and acoustic comfort on customers’ experience of hospitality in a self-service restaurant

“…Acoustic comfort refers to "a state of contentment with acoustic conditions" (Frontczak & Wargocki, 2011, p.925). Mokhtar et al (2014) distinguish inside noise (equipment, moving, activities) and outside noise (transportation and neighbouring buildings). The type of the noise, sound levels and the frequency of sounds are sound characteristics that influence what people perceive as comfortable (Frontczak & Wargocki, 2011).…”

The embodied experience of hospitality in service environments

“…Hardware aspects refer to the type of building and room interior aspects such as seating comfort (Lam, Chan, Fong, & Lo, 2011;Lucas, 2003;Wakefield & Blodget, 1996). Indoor environmental conditions include thermal comfort (Rijal, Humphreys, & Nicol, 2017;Wagner, Gossauer, Moosmann, Cropp, & Leonhart, 2007), visual comfort (Ricciardi & Buratti, 2018), acoustic comfort (Frontczak & Wargocki, 2011;Ricciardi & Buratti, 2018) and indoor air quality (Huizenga, Abbaszadeh, Zagreus, & Arens, 2006;Mokhtar, Zaoui, & Aid, 2014). So, both seating comfort and acoustic comfort are factors influencing people's perceptions of comfort in indoor environments.…”