Application of smart wearable sensors in office buildings for modelling of occupants’ metabolic responses

Abstract This paper reports and discusses the results of a field study focusing on the examination of thermal comfort conditions in two public buildings in Croatia. The wearable sensors were used for monitoring the occupants’ metabolic responses, along with the standard equipment for measuring thermal comfort. The occupants’ subjective comfort sensation was also investigated through a survey questionnaire and was used in conjunction with the measured data. A total number of eight occupants participated in the study, located in two office buildings in different climates. The modeling of the metabolic responses was obtained by means of artificial neural networks and the simulated values were compared with the measured ones. The validation of the models showed overlapping of 90%. However, they should be tested on a larger number of occupants. The study results revealed that the MET response usually varied between values 1.0 and 2.0, no matter the season, which is rather high for office activities according to standards, and indicates the inapplicability of static MET value usage in the calculation of PMV indexes. The implementation of wearable sensors provided accurate information on the dynamic changes of the building occupant's metabolic rate during working hours, enabling the reliable model algorithm creation to increase occupant satisfaction and potential energy savings. Finally, the differences between the two examined buildings’ thermal conditions were analyzed and useful findings regarding age, gender and physical fitness of occupants and their satisfactory level of comfort conditions were presented.

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