Towards Personalization of Indoor Air Quality: Review of Sensing Requirements and Field Deployments

Xu, Qian; Goh, Hui Ci; Mousavi, Ehsan; Rafsanjani, Hamed Nabizadeh; Varghese, Zubin; Pandit, Yogesh; Ghahramani, Ali

doi:10.3390/s22093444

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 93 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The prediction of thermal comfort via our proposed non-intrusive and contactless technique can be integrated into existing service systems, such as personal fans, ceiling fans, and any type of HVAC system, to make them responsive to the occupant needs in an autonomous way. Consequently, it would help improve occupant work productivity and health in the long term [42,43]. The personalized HVAC control system could also be applied to various scenarios, such as sleep and driving modes, to improve thermally comfortable indoor environments in all aspects [44].…”

Section: Discussion and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infrared-Fused Vision-Based Thermoregulation Performance Estimation for Personal Thermal Comfort-Driven HVAC System Controls

Ghahramani

Min

et al. 2022

Buildings

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thermal comfort is one of the primary factors influencing occupant health, well-being, and productivity in buildings. Existing thermal comfort systems require occupants to frequently communicate their comfort vote via a survey which is impractical as a long-term solution. Here, we present a novel thermal infrared-fused computer vision sensing method to capture thermoregulation performance in a non-intrusive and non-invasive manner. In this method, we align thermal and visible images, detect facial segments (i.e., nose, eyes, face boundary), and accordingly read the temperatures from the appropriate coordinates in the thermal image. We focus on the human face since it is often clearly visible to cameras and is not merged into a hot background (unlike hands). We use a regularized Gaussian Mixture model to track the thermoregulation changes over time and apply a heuristic algorithm to extract hot and cold indices. We present a personalized and a generalized comfort modeling method, selected based on the availability of the occupant historical indices measurements in a neutral environment, and use the time-series of the hot and cold indices to define corrections to HVAC system operations in the form of setpoint constraints. To evaluate the efficacy of our proposed approach in responding to thermal stimuli, we designed a series of controlled experiments to simulate exposure to cold and hot environments. While applying personalized modeling showed an acceptable average accuracy of 91.3%, the generalized model’s average accuracy was only 65.2%. This shows the importance of having access to physiological records in modeling and assessing comfort. We also found that individual differences should be considered in selecting the cooling and heating rates when some knowledge of the occupant’s overall thermal preference is available.

show abstract

Section: Discussion and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infrared-Fused Vision-Based Thermoregulation Performance Estimation for Personal Thermal Comfort-Driven HVAC System Controls

Ghahramani

Min

et al. 2022

Buildings

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Understanding the guidelines and standards for IAQ is important to develop and maintain healthy living conditions for occupants IAQ. ASTM, ASHARE, US EPA, and European Union (EU), Health Canada are some of the organizations that have the standards to assess the performance of air monitors (Xu et al, 2022). WELL (v2) and RESET (v2) are the standards used in industry to get IAQ certification for healthy buildings.…”

Section: Iaq Standardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Performance Evaluation of Seven Consumer-grade Indoor Air Quality Monitors in a Low-cost Laboratory Test Setting and in a Residential Environment

Zhen

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There are a number of new low cost, air quality devices marketed to consumers that monitor realtime, indoor air pollutants. Questions remain about the accuracy, responsiveness, and smartphone visualization capabilities of these devices. This MRP identified and tested 14 devices (seven types, two ofeach product): AirBird, Airthings View Plus, Aranet4 Home, Awair Omni, Eve Home, Laser Egg + CO 2, and Purple Air PA-1. The study used three methods: 1. a low-cost laboratory setting to test accuracy for CO 2;2) Comparison to a calibrated, research grade meter (Lighthouse Handheld-3016-IAQ) for particulate matter PM2.5, temperature,and relative humidity; 3. Short-term field testing in a residential environment. The main results were that all devices were within acceptable ranges for temperature, relative humidity, and CO 2, with some variation in the response time and data visualization. Only Purple Air PA-1 had accurate correlations with the research grade monitor when testing PM 2.. Field study testing demonstrated each device's reaction time and data visualization. Future work could focus on how to interpret the results from the IAQ monitors in housing design and human activities.

show abstract

“…There are a number of guidelines and standards for IAQ. For example, ASTM, ASHRAE, US EPA, and European Union (EU) and Health Canada are some of the organizations that have standards to assess the performance of air monitors [25]. WELL (v2) and RESET (v2) are some standards used in industry to meet IAQ certification requirements for healthy buildings.…”

Section: Iaq Standardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…TVOCs are often released in the form of gas from specific solids or liquids in the built environment. Paint, adhesives, sprays from cleansers, air fresheners and other building materials, furniture and equipment can release TVOCs [25]. The reason for not including this parameter in the test is because it is complicated to measure compared to other parameters [65].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Indoor Air Quality Monitoring Devices for Healthy Homes

Peters,

Zhen

2023

Buildings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In light of COVID-19, people are increasingly anxious about indoor air quality data in places where they live and work. Access to this data using a consumer-grade air quality monitor has become a way of giving agency to building users so that they can understand the ventilation effectiveness of the spaces where they spend their time. Methods: Fourteen low-cost, air quality devices marketed to consumers were tested (seven types, two of each product): AirBird, Airthings View Plus, Aranet4 Home, Awair Omni, Eve Room, Laser Egg + CO2, and Purple Air PA-1. The study focus was accuracy and useability using three methods: a low-cost laboratory setting to test accuracy for CO2; a comparison to a calibrated, research grade meter for particulate matter (PM2.5), temperature, and relative humidity; and short-term field testing in a residential environment to understand the quality of feedback given to users. Results: Relating to accuracy, all devices were within acceptable ranges for temperature, relative humidity, and CO2, and only one brand’s results met the accuracy threshold with the research grade monitor when testing PM2.5. In terms of usability, a significant variation in response time and data visualization was found on the devices or in the smartphone applications. Conclusions: While accuracy in IAQ data is important, in low-cost air quality devices marketed to consumers it is just as important that the data be presented in a way that can be used to empower people to make decisions and modify their indoor environment. We concluded that response time, user-interface, data sharing, and visualization are important parameters that may be overlooked if a study just focuses on accuracy. The design of the device, including its appearance, size, portability, screen brightness, and sound or light warning, must also be considered. The act of measuring is important, and more studies should focus on how users interpret and react to building performance data.

show abstract

Towards Personalization of Indoor Air Quality: Review of Sensing Requirements and Field Deployments

Cited by 12 publications

References 93 publications

Infrared-Fused Vision-Based Thermoregulation Performance Estimation for Personal Thermal Comfort-Driven HVAC System Controls

Infrared-Fused Vision-Based Thermoregulation Performance Estimation for Personal Thermal Comfort-Driven HVAC System Controls

A Performance Evaluation of Seven Consumer-grade Indoor Air Quality Monitors in a Low-cost Laboratory Test Setting and in a Residential Environment

Evaluating Indoor Air Quality Monitoring Devices for Healthy Homes

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About