PIMA: RFID and USN based personalized indoor microclimate adjuster

Everyone has physiological preference regarding micro-climate conditions such as temperature, humidity and illumination, therefore, personalized micro-climate control could certainly enhance human comfort level in building interior space. 25% of the total national energy consumption is related with buildings, so reducing building operation energy is also necessary. Consequently, innovative sensing technologies such as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and USN (Ubiquitous Sensor Network) are adopted to increase occupants' comfort level and to save energy for controlling both hygrothermal and visual environment in a building. This research explored how sensing technology could support a personalized indoor microclimate control to comfortably adapt physical environment to the identified occupant's preference. As the first step, we designed a simple automated environmental control system with home appliances such as heater, humidifier and lamp along with RFID and USN for sensing both occupants and environment. This RFID and USN based personalized indoor microclimate regulator uses multi-threshold scheme not to give an abrupt start or stop of home appliances and will possess learned preference recommendation capability to evolve its personal preference database according to the user's manual override behaviors observed from the system operations.