Machine learning-based personal thermal comfort model for electric vehicles with local infrared radiant warmers

• Published in: Journal of mechanical science and technology Vol. 35; no. 7; pp. 3239 - 3247
• Main Authors: Lee, Yein, Lee, Hyunjin, Kang, Byung Ha, Kim, Jung Kyung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Seoul Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers 01.07.2021; Springer Nature B.V; 대한기계학회
• Subjects: Air conditioning; Algorithms; Control; Dynamical Systems; Electric vehicles; Energy consumption; Engineering; HVAC; HVAC equipment; Hydronic heating; Industrial and Production Engineering; Internal combustion engines; Machine learning; Mechanical Engineering; Original Article; Radiant heating; Test chambers; Thermal comfort; Vibration; 기계공학; Electric vehicle; Local radiant heating; Random forest algorithm; Personal thermal comfort; Machine learning
• ISSN: 1738-494X; 1976-3824
• DOI: 10.1007/s12206-021-0644-7

Thermal comfort of occupants in conventional vehicles driven by an internal combustion engine is controlled by heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. However, the operation of a conventional HVAC system decreases the mileage of electric vehicle (EV) in the heating mode by nearly 50 %. Thus, local radiant heating was proposed as a heating strategy to reduce electric energy consumption while providing reasonable thermal comfort. In this work, we developed a personalized overall thermal sensation (OS) model using machine learning to evaluate the thermopsychological effect of local radiant heating and simulate the OS of occupants in EVs. Data were obtained from a real EV that went through a cold environmental chamber and were evaluated using random forest algorithm. By considering individual thermal preferences of occupants, we predicted the OS for each subject with higher accuracy by a factor of 2.6 compared with the prediction performed using the weighted average method. Total energy consumption was reduced by approximately 10 % in the EV equipped with local infrared radiant warmers while providing OS that was comparable with that of the HVAC system.