Personalized local heating neutralizing individual, spatial, and temporal thermo-physiological variances in extreme cold environments

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the feasibility, robustness, and optimization of introducing personal comfort systems (PCS), apparatuses that promises in energy saving and comfort improvement, into a broader range of environments. We report a series of laboratory experiments systematically examining the effect of personalized heating in neutralizing individual, spatial, and temporal variations of thermal demands. The experiments were conducted in an artificial climate chamber at −15 °C in order to simulate extreme cold environments. We developed a heating garment with 20 pieces of 20 × 20 cm2 heating cloth (grouped into 9 regions) comprehensively covering human body. Surface temperatures of the garment can be controlled independently, quickly (within 20 s), precisely (within 1 °C), and easily (through a tablet) up to 45 °C. Participants were instructed to adjust surface temperatures of each segment to their preferences, with their physiological, psychological, and adjustment data collected. We found that active heating could significantly and stably improve thermal satisfaction. The overall TSV and TCV were improved 1.50 and 1.53 during the self-adjustment phase. Preferred heating surface temperatures for different segments varied widely. Further, even for the same segment, individual differences among participants were considerable. Such variances were observed through local heating powers, while unnoticeable among thermal perception votes. In other words, all these various differences could be neutralized given the flexibility in personalized adjustments. Our research reaffirms the paradigm of “adaptive thermal comfort” and will promote innovations on human-centric design for more efficient PCSs.