An Innovative Modelling Approach Based on Building Physics and Machine Learning for the Prediction of Indoor Thermal Comfort in an Office Building

In this paper, an innovative hybrid modelling technique based on machine learning and building dynamic simulation is presented for the prediction of indoor thermal comfort feedback from occupants in an office building in Le Bourget-du-Lac, Chambéry, France. The office was equipped with Internet of Things (IoT) environmental sensors. A calibrated building energy model was created for the building using optimisation tools. Thermal comfort was collected using a portable device. A machine learning (ML) model was trained using collected feedback, environmental data from IoT devices and synthetic datasets (virtual sensors) extracted from a physics-based model. A calibrated energy model was used in co-simulation with the predictive method to estimate comfort levels for the building. The results show the ability of the method to improve the prediction of occupant feedback when compared to traditional thermal comfort approaches of about 25%, the importance of information extracted from the physics-based model and the possibility of leveraging scenario evaluation capabilities of the dynamic simulation model for control purposes.