Air conditioning and ventilation system
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing air-conditioning ventilation systems fail to balance comfort and energy efficiency, as they typically rely on immediate human presence detection, leading to impaired comfort and inefficient energy use, especially when heating or cooling rooms without scheduled occupancy.
Innovation Solution
An air-conditioning ventilation system that estimates human presence and preferences using sensors and a controller to pre-condition rooms based on predicted occupancy and individual preferences, optimizing temperature settings and air circulation to enhance comfort while reducing energy consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the ventilation device operates to move indoor air based on current human presence detection, then the room temperature can be adjusted to match target temperature, but the comfort is impaired because air circulation starts after human detection
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary air circulation and temperature adjustment in rooms predicted to have future human presence. The estimation unit predicts human presence based on historical data and schedules, triggering the ventilation device to operate before actual occupancy occurs, ensuring comfortable conditions are already established when occupants arrive.
2Ease of operation
If heat energy is supplied into a room not scheduled to have human presence, then the room temperature environment is enhanced, but the energy saving performance degrades
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses feedback from the estimation unit that predicts future human presence based on historical occupancy data and schedules. This feedback mechanism enables the control unit to activate heating or cooling only in rooms where human presence is predicted, avoiding energy waste in unoccupied rooms while ensuring comfort in rooms that will be occupied.
3Device complexity
If the system uses current human presence detection to control ventilation, then the control logic is simple, but it cannot achieve both comfort and energy saving performance simultaneously
Solution Approach 1:
The estimation unit acts as an intermediary between simple presence detection and complex predictive control. It processes historical occupancy data and schedules to generate predictions about future human presence, enabling the system to balance comfort and energy efficiency without requiring overly complex control logic or infrastructure.
Data Source
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AI summary
An air-conditioning ventilation system of the present invention includes one or a plurality of air circulation devices 3 configured to circulate air among a plurality of rooms, one or a plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses 2 provided in at least one of the plurality of rooms, a human detector 104 provided in each of the plurality of rooms and configured to detect a human present in a corresponding one of the rooms in which the human detector 104 is provided, an optimal air-conditioning ventilation operation estimating unit 112 configured to estimate presence or absence of any human in each of the plurality of rooms, or a human presence ratio representing a number of humans present per unit time in each of the plurality of rooms, on a basis of a past result of detection by the human detector 104, and a controller 5 configured to control the air circulation device 3 and the air-conditioning apparatus 2 on a basis of a result of estimation by the optimal air-conditioning ventilation operation estimating unit 112.