Smart Thermostat based on Machine Learning and Rule Engine

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a smart thermostat temperature set-point control method based on machine learning and rule engine, which controls thermostat’s temperature set-point so that it can achieve energy savings as much as possible without sacrifice of occupants’ comfort while users’ preference usage pattern is respected. First, the proposed method periodically mines data about how user likes for heating (winter)/cooling (summer) his or her home by learning his or her usage pattern of setting temperature set-point of the thermostat during the past several weeks. Then, from this learning, the proposed method establishes a weekly schedule about temperature setting. Next, by referring to thermal comfort chart by ASHRAE, it makes rules about how to adjust temperature set-points as much as low (winter) or high (summer) while the newly adjusted temperature set-point satisfies thermal comfort zone for predicted humidity. In order to make rules work on time or events, we adopt rule engine so that it can achieve energy savings properly without sacrifice of occupants’ comfort. Through experiments, it is shown that the proposed smart thermostat temperature set-point control method can achieve better energy savings while keeping human comfort compared to other conventional thermostat.