Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to methods for determining a target operation point, target operation point determination devices, and user input devices.

Background

[0002] A shared office may have to be operated with one overall set point temperature which is set either in the central building management system (BMS) or by one local controller in the room. Thus, there may be desire to set the overall set point temperature properly.

Summary

[0003] According to the present invention, a method for determining a target operation point as claimed in claim 1 is provided. A target operation point determination device according to the invention is defined in claim 9. A user input device according to the invention is defined in claim 10. The dependent claims define some examples.

Brief Description of the Drawings

[0004] In the drawings, like reference characters generally refer to the same parts throughout the different views. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead generally being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention. In the following description, various embodiments are described with reference to the following drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a psychometric chart;

FIG. 2 shows an illustration of a comfort model; FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B show flow diagrams illustrating methods for determining a target operation point according to various embodiments;

FIG. 3C shows a target operation point determination device according to various embodiments;

FIG. 3D shows a user input device according to various embodiments;

FIG. 4A shows a controlling system 400 according to various embodiments; and

FIG. 4B shows an illustration of a user input device according to various embodiments.

Description

[0005] According to the design guidelines of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning controls (HVAC) for shared offices in commercial buildings are normally operated based on the average room temperature and humidity as well as partly on the C02 concentration of the outlet air to evaluate for the occupancy of the shared office. The comfort zone may be defined at temperatures between 22 °C and 27 °C and a relative humidity (RH) of 40% to 60%. The set point temperature may mostly be a fixed value between 23-26°C. Partly there may be applied some correction of the set point temperature according to the outdoor temperature to reduce energy demand and keep user comfort.

[0006] FIG. 1 shows a psychometric chart 100, in which a comfort zone 106 is illustrated. A horizontal axis 102 indicates the dry bulb temperature (for example in °C), and a vertical axis 104 indicates the specific humidity (for example in grams of water per kilogram of dry air). Lines 108, 110, and 112 indicate levels of relative humidity of 100%, 60%, and 40%, respectively.

[0007] A shared office may have to be operated with one overall set point temperature which is set either in the central building management system (BMS) or by one local controller in the room. Operation experiences show that the given temperature in the office may not satisfy all user requirements, as individual demand may vary according to individual metabolism and activity rate, clothing level as well as varying ventilation and radiation conditions in the office. The expected user satisfaction may be described in a comfort model from Ole Fanger by a Predicted Mean Vote (PMV), which rates the comfort from -3 (too cold) to +3 (too hot). This vote can be calculated based on temperature, humidity, air flow, activity, clothing level and outdoor conditions. The insulation effect by the clothing may vary from about 0.15 K/W (for example for light summer cloths) to about 0.6 K/W (for example for warm winters cloths) and may have to be applied on the heat generation according to the individual activity. The heat generated by an average person may vary e.g. from 100 W (while the person is sitting) to 250 W (while the person is moving, for example cleaning the home).

[0008] Due to the variation of the user, a Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied (PPD) may be calculated based on the indoor condition. It may be desired that the design point satisfies at least 80% of the users.

[0009] FIG. 2 shows an illustration 200 of a comfort model. A rating of a PMV 202

(wherein for example -3 corresponds to "cold", -2 to "cool", -1 to "slightly cool", 0 to

"neutral", 1 to "slightly warm", 2 to "warm", and 3 corresponds to "hot") may be used to determine a PPD, for example like illustrated by diagram 204, in which a horizontal axis 206 corresponds to the PMV, and a vertical axis 208 corresponds to the PPD (for example in %).

[0010] The capability to meet the individual requirements of the user by a HVAC based on the temperature and humidity control according to the PMV may be limited, as the highest impact on the personal comfort is given by clothing style on the activity rate. The PMV model may give only a suggestion for a set point for the room temperature but does not account for the actual user activity rate and clothing style. So there may still be a high percentage of persons in the rooms which are dissatisfied by the central set temperature.

[0011] Sensitivity and adaptability of people to ambient temperature may be different. The comfort perception of the situation may thus be different as well, and this may influence the voting for the PMV. Thus, more sensitive people may heavily influence the vote without even being satisfied, and this may lead to shifting the set point value even out of the comfort range for more adaptive people.

[0012] According to various embodiments, by measurement of the comfort conditions at the user work place, this shift on the PMV may be compensated in the BMS. Sensors may either be installed in a separate sensor network for the IAQ (indoor air quality) at the workplaces, or information available in the voting device may be used.

[0013] Examples for corrections are:

[0014] i) Evaluation, whether changes at HVAC affects situation at workplace;

[0015] ii) Evaluation on the sensitivity of user to temperature variation;

[0016] iii) Optimization of overall set point temperature to satisfy as much user as possible; or

[0017] iv) Integration of operation cost in the cost function for the set point of the HVAC system.

[0018] According to various embodiments, devices and methods may be provided for an evaluation strategy for user feedback on indoor comfort in shared offices.

[0019] FIG. 3A shows a flow diagram 300 illustrating a method for determining a target operation point according to various embodiments. In 302, a local climate measurement at a position of a first user may be determined. In 304, a local climate measurement at a position of a second user may be determined. In 306, a satisfaction of the first user may be determined, In 308, a satisfaction of the second user may be determined. In 310, the target point may be determined, based on the local climate measurement at the position of the first user, the satisfaction of the first user, the local climate measurement at the position of the second user, and the satisfaction of the second user. For example, in 302, 304, 306, and 308, the respective information may be received from respective users, for example from user input devices (for example like described with reference to FIG. 3D and/ or FIG. 4B below) of the respective users.

[0020] In other words, a target point (for example for operating a heating or air condition) may be determined based on a plurality of local measurements, and based on information on the satisfaction of a plurality of users.

[0021] According to various embodiments, the target point may be determined further based on a present target point.

[0022] According to various embodiments, the target point may be determined further based on further local climate measurements at positions of further users.

[0023] According to various embodiments, the target point may be determined further based on satisfaction of further users.

[0024] According to various embodiments, the target operation point may include or may be a target temperature.

[0025] According to various embodiments, the target operation point may include or may be a target humidity.

[0026] According to various embodiments, each local climate measurement may include or may be a temperature measurement.

[0027] According to various embodiments, each local climate measurement may include or may be a humidity measurement.

[0028] It will be understood that a temperature measurement and/ or a humidity measurement are examples for the local climate measurement. According to various embodiments, each local climate measurement may include or may be an air velocity measurement. According to various embodiments, each local climate measurement may include or may be a measurement of air quality, for example as indicated by C02 or volatile organic component (VOC), which may have an impact on user comfort. Similarly, a target air velocity and/ or a target air quality may be included in the target point. [0029] FIG. 3B shows a further flow diagram 307 illustrating a method for determining a target operation point according to various embodiments. Various portions of the flow diagram 307 may be similar or identical to the flow diagram 300 shown in FIG. 3 A, so that the same reference signs may be used and duplicate description may be omitted. While in FIG. 3A, a method according to various embodiments has been described with reference to two users, in FIG. 3B a method according to various embodiments is described with an integer number n of users. It will be understood that n may be any integer number. In 303, a local climate measurement at a position of an n-th user may be determined. In 307, a satisfaction of the n-th user may be determined. In 310, the target point may be determined based on the local climate measurements at the positions of the first user to the n-th user (in other words: of user 1 to user n), and based on the satisfaction of the first user to n-th user.

[0030] FIG. 3C shows a target operation point determination device 312 according to various embodiments. The target operation point determination device 312 may include a first measurement determination circuit 314 configured to determine a local climate measurement at a position of a first user. The target operation point determination device 312 may further include a second measurement determination circuit 316 configured to determine a local climate measurement at a position of a second user. The target operation point determination device 312 may further include a first satisfaction determination circuit 318 configured to determine a satisfaction of the first user. The target operation point determination device 312 may further include a second satisfaction determination circuit 320 configured to determine a satisfaction of the second user. The target operation point determination device 312 may further include a target point determination circuit 322 configured to determine a target point based on the local climate measurement at the position of the first user, the satisfaction of the first user, the local climate measurement at the position of the second user, and the satisfaction of the second user. The first measurement determination circuit 314, the second measurement determination circuit 316, the first satisfaction determination circuit 318, the second satisfaction determination circuit 320, and the target point determination circuit 322 may be coupled with each other, like indicated by lines 324, for example electrically coupled, for example using a line or a cable, and/ or mechanically coupled.

[0031] According to various embodiments, the circuits 314, 316, 318, and 322 may be configured to receive the respective information from respective users, for example from user input devices (for example like described with reference to FIG. 3D and/ or FIG. 4B below) of the respective users.

[0032] FIG. 3D shows a user input device 326 according to various embodiments. The user input device 326 may include a measurement circuit 328 configured to measure a local climate at a position of the user input device 326. The user input device 326 may further include a satisfaction determination 330 circuit configured to determine a satisfaction of a user of the user input device 326. The user input device 326 may further include a communication circuit 332 configured to transmit information indicating the local climate and information indicating the satisfaction to a target operation point determination device (for example to the target operation point determination device 312 shown in FIG. 3C).

[0033] Various embodiments are provided for devices, and various embodiments are provided for methods. It will be understood that basic properties of the devices also hold for the methods and vice versa. Therefore, for sake of brevity, duplicate description of such properties may be omitted.

[0034] In this context, the target operation point determination device as described in this description may include a memory which is for example used in the processing carried out in the target operation point determination device. In this context, the user input device as described in this description may include a memory which is for example used in the processing carried out in the user input device. A memory used in the embodiments may be a volatile memory, for example a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) or a non- volatile memory, for example a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory), an EPROM (Erasable PROM), EEPROM (Electrically Erasable PROM), or a flash memory, e.g., a floating gate memory, a charge trapping memory, an MRAM (Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) or a PCRAM (Phase Change Random Access Memory).

[0035] In an embodiment, a "circuit" may be understood as any kind of a logic implementing entity, which may be special purpose circuitry or a processor executing software stored in a memory, firmware, or any combination thereof. Thus, in an embodiment, a "circuit" may be a hard-wired logic circuit or a programmable logic circuit such as a programmable processor, e.g. a microprocessor (e.g. a Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) processor or a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) processor). A "circuit" may also be a processor executing software, e.g. any kind of computer program, e.g. a computer program using a virtual machine code such as e.g. Java. Any other kind of implementation of the respective functions which will be described in more detail below may also be understood as a "circuit" in accordance with an alternative embodiment.

[0036] FIG. 4A shows a controlling system 400 according to various embodiments. The responses within a given time period from the distributed voting devices with votes C _j and local temperatures Γ; of e.g. user A-D (users 404, 406, 408, and 410) may be collected in the building management system (BMS) 402. From these feedbacks (CA, A, CB, TB, CC, TC,

CD, and TD), a term to correct the set point temperature T _set may be calculated and output from the BMS 402, based on the history of the users votes Q(t) and the time profiles of temperatures at the work places T^t . For example, the new set point temperature T _setmew may be calculated as follows:

[0037] T _set>old may be the old set point temperature. In other words, the adjustment of the temperature may be done according to the sum of the weighted vote by a transformation F scaled with a amplification value K. It will be understood that the amplification value may for example be identical to 1.

[0038] The procedure may allow to account for the different qualification of the users votes. E.g. if it is figured out, that one of the users can never be satisfied as the ventilation cannot affect this work place, his vote could be ranked lower, until perhaps necessary modifications of the hardware are made.

[0039] It will be understood that although the embodiment shown in FIG. 4A operates with four users, any number of users may be present according to various embodiments.

[0040] FIG. 4B shows an illustration of an exemplary user input device 405 according to various embodiments. Each of the users 404, 406, 408, 410 illustrated in FIG. 4A may be equipped with such an input device 405. The user input device 405 may include a user interface 412 for the vote of the user's satisfaction. The user interface 412 may for example include an upward arrow 416, which a user may press if he is satisfied, and a downward arrow 418, which the user may press if he is not satisfied. Furthermore, a temperature scale 414 may be provided, in which a measurement of the temperature at the position of the user input device 405 may be represented by an arrow 420.

[0041] According to various embodiments, a combination of comfort based voting device with temperature (and/ or humidity) sensing functionality may be provided.

[0042] While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to specific embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. The scope of the invention is thus indicated by the appended claims and all changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are therefore intended to be embraced.