Agent-Based Modelling of Occupants’ Clothing and Activity Behaviour and Their Impact on Thermal Comfort in Buildings

Abstract

This paper proposes a new agent-based approach to model the clothing and activity behaviour of occupants in buildings. An autonomous agent is created to interact with the surrounding thermal environment and make decisions based on its comfort level. The agent-based behaviour model was implemented by MATLAB and was linked with building energy simulation program EnergyPlus via Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB) and MLE+. A simulation experiment was conducted to see how an agent adapts to the dynamic thermal changes in different seasons and how it affects the annual thermal comfort. Obvious variation in the predicted annual discomfort time can be observed when using the agent-based method compared with a traditional commonly used method with static parameters. The paper concludes with a discussion of the model’s current limitations and possibilities for future development.