WO2007065736A1

WO2007065736A1 - Real-time thermal regulation system and method

Info

Publication number: WO2007065736A1
Application number: PCT/EP2006/064889
Authority: WO
Inventors: Francis Bredin; Gerard Lebesnerais
Original assignee: International Business Machines Corporation; Compagnie Ibm France
Priority date: 2005-12-08
Filing date: 2006-08-01
Publication date: 2007-06-14

Abstract

A system for regulating thermal conditions within an enclosure is disclosed. The system uses information on the meteorological conditions existing in proximity to the enclosure, on the geographical position of the enclosure, on environmental parameters of the enclosure, and user's preferences of thermal conditions for the enclosure. Moreover, the system gathers this information relative to the enclosure with thermal comfort guidelines and predefined thermal regulation routines to generate an optimized set of thermal regulation parameters.

Description

Real-time Thermal Regulation System and Method

Technical Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to the field of thermal control systems and, more particularly, to a system, method and computer program for controlling the thermal regulation within an enclosed space.

Background Art

It is known in the art that thermal comfort is affected by numerous factors like temperature, air velocity, humidity, direct solar flux as well as the level of activity or the clothing type of an individual or the cover of a seat, and so on.... As so many parameters are involved in the thermal comfort and because the metabolism energizing of each individual differs in the individual set of preferences, there is a real difficulty to successfully regulate an efficient thermal comfort. Most of the conventional techniques use a platform regulation' s setting up that is manually updated to fit the needs. Such manual control is often not on track with the real environment situation. The result is generally an undesirable airflow due to an inefficient system of natural air distribution or an inefficient polluted-air system evacuation. In addition various internal parameters such as the extreme floor temperature, the extreme roof temperature along with an asymmetric radiation temperature are difficult to manage and rarely meet the occupant expectations . These concerns lead to a poor efficient thermal regulation which does not match the external constraints and the occupants directives .

Therefore, a need has arisen for a quickly adjustable and efficient thermal regulation system and method.

Summary of the invention It is a broad object of the invention to provide a system and method to regulate thermal conditions of an enclosure based on external measurements and individuals preferences .

It is another object of the invention to provide a thermal regulation system and method based on previous analyzed regulation situations.

It is still another object of the invention to provide a costly thermal regulation system that is user friendly.

According to the invention there is provided a system and method for regulating the thermal conditions of an enclosure as described in the appended independent Claims.

Further aspects of the invention are provided by the further embodiments described in the appended dependent Claims.

According to a first embodiment, a system for regulating thermal conditions within an enclosure comprises:

means for receiving information on:

- meteorological conditions existing in proximity to the enclosure; - a geographical position of said enclosure;

- environmental parameters of the enclosure; and

- user' s preferences of thermal conditions for the enclosure; means for searching information on thermal comfort guidelines and on predefined thermal regulation routines; and processing means coupled to the receiving means and to the searching means for generating a set of thermal regulation parameters using the information received and the information searched.

In a commercial aspect, a method for providing a set of thermal regulation parameters for an enclosure comprises the steps of:

acquiring information on the enclosure including:

- meteorological conditions existing in proximity to the enclosure;

- a geographical position of said enclosure;

- environmental parameters of the enclosure; and - user' s preferences of thermal conditions for the enclosure;

searching information on thermal comfort guidelines and on predefined thermal regulation routines; and processing the information acquired and the information searched to generate a set of thermal regulation parameters .

According to a further aspect of the present invention, a computer program product stored on a medium readable by a computer machine is disclosed. The computer program product tangibly embodies readable program means for causing the computer machine to perform the method of regulating the thermal conditions of an enclosure as described in the appended claims . Brief Description of the Drawings

Reference will now be made, by way of example, to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a block diagram of the thermal regulation system of the present invention;

Figure 2 is a flow diagram of the thermal regulation process of the present invention.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment

Principle of the invention

To overcome the drawbacks of the prior art, the present invention provides a system for regulating in real-time the thermal conditions of an enclosure. The comfort objectives are tailored to the individual requirements to meet many various situations in any specific location. The system is based on the respect of the "homeostasis" science that gives the capability to adjust human interior medium parameters to work at their optimum in comparison with external constraints. As defined in the ^ΛWikipedia' Encyclopedia on the Internet, the homeostasis is "the property of an open system to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable, constant condition, by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments, controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms."

To meet this objective, the system of the present invention refines the thermal regulation by taking into account all the parameters that allow to adjust the thermal conditions. Those parameters come from both external and internal measurements, personal and collective expectations through:

- considering the exact location of the area that needs to be thermally regulated in real-time; - apprehending the appropriate regulation scenario to fit with the detected situation;

taking into account the evolution of the current meteorological conditions;

- respecting conventional thermal regulation guidelines; and enriching a referential of thermal regulation routines encountered in previous situations.

The geographical position of the enclosure to be regulated is preferably acquired from a Global Positioning System (GPS) , and the meteorological conditions are preferably issued from a meteorological satellite such as the "Meteosat" well-known one .

The conventional thermal comfort guidelines may vary from country to country but also from industry to industry and it is to be appreciated that the present invention is customizable to any specific sector by applying the corresponding standards, such as for example, the AFNOR air temperature specifications NF-X-35-203 which recommand an average range of temperature between 22° and 26° Celsius for business workplaces. Others guidelines may cover radiation ^Λs temperature average, air flow quality in term of speed or distribution (such as a number of blowers, their position) , air humidity and moisture or textile substance quality and cleaning (such as a carpet formol evacuation) . Another advantage of the present invention is the capability to export the referential of the regulation situations to different thermal regulation systems. The historical scenario may be stored into a memory of the system or into a ^Λ smart card' type device for example for allowing transmission to another regulation system.

All these measurements allow to compute a resultant regulation vector that will drive a thermal regulation, compliant both with thermal comfort guidelines and individuals expectations.

In addition to the previous computation, a plurality of external and internal sensors allow the system to be self-regulated as it will be described in more details hereinafter.

It is to be appreciated that the advantage of using meteosat data is the fact that meteorological situation can be easily foreseen thereby providing a more efficient thermal regulation. This leads to significantly reduce the operating cost of thermal regulation in large systems like buildings, ships ... and so .

Finally, the invention is applicable to a wide variety of sectors such as the automotive, the naval industrial, the building ones to name a few. The following detailed description is to be read now with reference to the drawings, in which like elements in different drawings are numbered in like fashion. The drawings even if highly diagrammatically ones, depict selected embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the examples provided have suitable alternatives which may be utilized.

Going first to figure 1, a functional block diagram of the system of the present invention is now described. A "Meteosat" block (101) collects the environmental data message transmitted from the "Meteosat" satellite. The meteosat message contains information related to the date and the local meteorological information. Those meteorological information are decoded to generate a "meteorological area vector". The "meteorological area vector" is routed to a thermal regulation controller (109) . A "WiFi" block (102) may be additionally connected to the thermal regulation controller to backup the meteosat message in case the satellite data collection crashes or data are difficult to be caught. The WiFi block receives data coming from the Internet, i.e. from a meteorological WEB network and decode those data to generate a backup meteorological vector. In addition, the WiFi decoder may allow the controller to be perfectly synchronized in case of mobility used in specific zone where WiFi facility system has been included. A "GPS" block (103) , also coupled to the thermal regulation controller, determines the exact location of the thermal regulation system and generates a corresponding location vector. The "location vector" is routed to the thermal regulation controller (109) . A data collection platform (104) is used to collect internal and external environment parameters (such as for example indoor/outdoor temperature, light, humidity, date, time, number of occupants, ...) that are measured by internal and external sensors (not described here) . An environmental vector is generated. The "environmental vector" is routed to the thermal regulation controller (109) .

A "personal set of preferences" block (105) allows to get user' s directives which may be entered from a user' s console (not described here). The user's preferences - temperature, airflow management, air velocity and so - are encoded and a "user setup vector" is generated and transmitted to the thermal regulation controller (109) .

A "thermal comfort guidelines" block (106) is a referential database that stores pre-coded regulation routines in order that the thermal regulation controller (109) adjusts the thermal regulation in regard to the "homeostasis" concept. These routines generate an adequate scenario to meet the optimum "homeostasis" human balance expectation in a way as previously indicated. For example, if the external enclosure temperature is around 3O⁰C, it is then not necessary to have a pre-coded expected temperature of 18⁰C when a temperature of 22⁰C is more appropriate in term of equilibrium between outdoor and indoor temperatures. The homeostasis guidelines thus provide the adequate average temperature value plus several other specifications and characteristics that suit with the human balance organism.

In a preferred implementation, the "homeostasis" referential database is embedded within a dedicated "flash memory" (not described here) , and an "homeostasis vector" is generated. The homeostasis block can be easily updated through a smart card device controller (108) . A "predefined situation" block (107) is a referential database where previous regulation routines are stored. It allows to monitor the thermal regulation controller (109) in regard to the history scenario. A comparison process allows to compare the current situation to previous ones already stored into the referential database. If a similar situation is detected, the corresponding regulation routine is extracted and an "history- vector" is generated to monitor the regulation system. The "predefined situation" database is preferably embedded within a dedicated "flash memory" (not described here) . The update of the predefined situation database and the extraction of a specific routine can be done through a smart card device controller (108) . This allow to easily export the historic database to another thermal regulation system.

The thermal regulation controller (109) further comprises a Functional States Machine (FSM 110) that gather all the information received from the different blocks (101 to 107) to compute an optimum thermal regulation.

As already mentioned, the historic database as well as the homeostasis database can be exported and updated using a "smart card" device controller (108) .

The ^ΛLoad' and the ^Sampling' inputs (shown as arrows at the bottom of the figure) are control signals that respectively allow to write in the databases and to refresh the satellite transmitted information. The operating of these controls are described in more details below.

The real-time thermal regulation system of the present invention is operated through several phases as now described with reference to figure 2.

Initialization phase (201) :

During the initialization phase, the thermal comfort guidelines database (106) is (re) configured by inputting data from the "smart card" device controller (108) or from another means of data bus communication (not described here) . Ingress data incoming from the "smart card" are loaded into the dedicated flash memory of the guidelines database by setting a "load" function. A "qualifier vector" that contains the necessary message to monitor the global initialization of the system is generated. The pre-loaded data from the thermal comfort guideline database represent the "homeostasis vector" that serve as thermal regulation directives in accordance with the human balance standard.

Furthermore, the initialization phase allows the predefined situation database (107) to be (re) configured by reading data from the "smart card" device controller (108) or from another means of data bus communication.

Finally, the initialization phase allows to reset the thermal regulation Functional State Machine (110) . User requirement acquisition phase (202):

During the user requirement acquisition phase, the user predefined values are loaded from the personal set of preferences block (105) . Some personal preferences such as thermal user conditions and specific regulation scenario are preset by programming the user console that is linked to the personal set of preferences encoder.

The user console may include a command to select either a manual or an automatic mode. The automatic mode allows the system to be self regulated by using the satellite message associated with the data coming from the referential databases . The manual mode allows the system to be regulated by using the user parameters.

Satellite acquisition data phase (203) :

The satellite acquisition data phase allows to adapt the thermal regulation in real-time. As explained previously, two independent processing paths receive simultaneously satellite messages: a first message provided by the Meteosat satellite and received by the Meteosat block (101) for conversion into the " Meteorological area vector", and a second message provided by the GPS satellite and received by the GPS block (103) for conversion into the "Location vector". During the satellite acquisition phase, the incoming satellite messages are frequently sampled by using a "sampling" function to update and refresh the measurements . A real-time vector indicates the occurrences of the "Meteorological area vector" and the "Location vector".

Data collection phase (204) :

The data collection phase allows to adjust the thermal regulation in real-time by taking into account the "environmental vector" and the "real-time vector". To recall, the "environmental vector" is issued from external and internal sensors, and is frequently sampled, using the sampling function, and held to update and refresh the measurements. The "environmental vector" is compared to the thermal comfort guidelines at the "real-time vector"frequency . The comparison results in a "thermal output vector" which monitors the thermal regulation FSM block (110) .

History processing phase (205) :

During this phase, the process allows to search for history measurements identical to the current situation. When a "real-time vector" occurs, a comparison is made to search for identical or at least similar values stored into the predefined situation database. In case of matching, a "hit-history" vector is generated. The history processing phase also allows to search, at the occurrence of an "environmental vector", for identical or at least similar values stored into the predefined situation database. In case of matching, a "hit-history" vector is generated. Those skilled in the art would appreciate that the term "hit" means that a similar situation has been detected leading to download the corresponding predefined history environment values to serve as reference for the thermal regulation processing. The "hit history" vector when activated allows to monitor the thermal regulation FSM block (110) .

In case no occurrence is detected, then a "regular vector" is activated and the system is switched to a regular mode which allows to monitor the thermal regulation FSM block based on the current values .

Finally, the thermal regulation FSM block (110) is always monitored in real-time by the incoming vector, either the hit-history one or the regular one.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the method and system of the present invention has been described for a preferred embodiment, but modifications and variations may be made to the above without departing from the scope of the invention .

Claims

1. A system (109) for regulating thermal conditions within an enclosure comprising:

means (101, 103, 104, 105) for receiving information on:

- meteorological conditions existing in proximity to the enclosure;

- a geographical position of said enclosure;

- environmental parameters of said enclosure; and

- user' s preferences of thermal conditions for said enclosure; means (106, 107) for searching information on thermal comfort guidelines and on predefined thermal regulation routines; and processing means (110) coupled to the receiving means and to the searching means for generating a set of thermal regulation parameters using the information received and the information searched.

2. The system of claim 2 wherein the means for receiving information on meteorological conditions comprises a meteorological satellite (METEOSAT) receiver.

3. The system of claim 1 or 2 wherein the means for receiving information on geographical position comprises a global positioning system (GPS) receiver.

4. The system of claims 1, 2 or 3 wherein the means for receiving information on environmental parameters comprises first sensing means located inside the enclosure.

5. The system of any one of claims 1 to 4 wherein the means for receiving information on environmental parameters comprises second sensing means located outside the enclosure.

6. The system of any one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the means for receiving information on user' s preferences comprises means coupled to a personal computer system.

7. The system of any one of claims 1 to 6 further comprising memory means for storing the thermal comfort guidelines and the predefined thermal regulation routines .

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the memory means is a programmable memory.

9. The system of claim 7 or 8 further comprising a smart card device for accessing the memory means.

10. The system of any one of claims 1 to 9 wherein the processing means is a Finite State Machine (FSM) .

11. The system of any one of claims 1 to 10 wherein the receiving means further comprising wireless internet communication means .

12. A method for regulating thermal conditions within an enclosure comprising the steps of:

receiving information on the enclosure including:

- meteorological conditions existing in proximity to the enclosure;

- a geographical position of said enclosure;

- environmental parameters of the enclosure; and

- user' s preferences of thermal conditions for the enclosure; searching information on thermal comfort guidelines and on predefined thermal regulation routines; and processing the information received and the information searched to generate a set of thermal regulation parameters .

13. A computer program product stored on a medium readable by a computer machine, the computer program product tangibly embodying readable program means for causing the computer machine to perform the method according to claim 12.

14. A method for providing a set of thermal regulation parameters for an enclosure comprising the steps of:

acquiring information on the enclosure including:

- meteorological conditions existing in proximity to the enclosure;

- a geographical position of said enclosure;

- environmental parameters of the enclosure; and

- user' s preferences of thermal conditions for the enclosure;