Occupant-centric Control of Building Systems based on Real-time Optimization by Extremum Seeking

It is critical for building energy management to deal with the trade-offs between occupants' thermal comfort and energy consumption. This study introduced the extremum seeking control to real-time optimize the building system operation in an office environment setting. Multiple cases were investigated in this study, with the objectives including multiple occupants' thermal comfort expectations and energy consumption. The results showed that the extremum seeking control is capable of providing the real-time optimal temperature set point, which balances the trade-offs between thermal comfort and energy consumption. Compared to the constant operating temperature setpoint (24 degrees C), the extremum seeking control could save up to 22% of the total energy consumption, therefore has the potential to be implemented in the real-world building control systems.