Development of Intelligent Wireless Sensor Networks for Human Comfort Index Measurement

Conventional wireless home automation networks (WHANs) incorporate embedded wireless sensors and actuators that monitors and control home living environment. WHANs primary goal is to maintain user comfort and efficient home management. Conventional WHAN lacks higher “intelligence” in term of managing compound human comfort where as it deals with multitude of human comfort factors individually instead of collectively. This paper presents wireless sensor networks (WSN) based Human Comfort Ambient Intelligence (HCAmI) system. The design of a Fuzzy Rule Based System (FRBS) for the measurement of Human Comfort Index (HCI) in a living space is presented. The design of FRBS is described and the system is evaluated and tested by using combined simulated and empirical data. It explores the complex relationship between multiple comfort factors in human comfort provisioning. The comfort factors considered here include thermal comfort, visual comfort, indoor air comfort and acoustical comfort.