IoT-Based Smart Air Conditioning Control for Thermal Comfort

Abstract

Thermal comfort brings a great influence that may affect the satisfaction of an occupant about the surrounding indoor environment, as this could led to the level of productivity and social interactions. One of the most suitable tools that have been utilized in tropical region to create thermally comfortable indoor environment is the air conditioning (AC) system. However, the conventional method of controlling the AC may not guarantee thermally comfortable indoor ambience, furthermore excessive cooling chosen by users may also contributed to negative side effect toward the occupancy’s health. To overcome this problem, an IoT-based smart system that can control the AC to provide a suitable thermally comfortable environment is proposed in this project. The system will interact with the users by recording their feeling toward the environment as the input for the system. Together with sensors’ data, the information will be integrated with an enhanced Predicted Mean Vote (PMV)-based model to control the AC smartly so that the occupant can feel thermal satisfaction. Based on the results, the IoT-based smart system can create a thermally comfortable indoor environment compared to the maximum cooling setting as usually being adapted by the room’s occupants.