Thermostat with preemptive heating, cooling, and ventilation in response to elevated occupancy detection via proxy

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10866003-B2
Application number	US-201815953228-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 13, 2018
Priority date	Apr 14, 2017
Publication date	Dec 15, 2020
Grant date	Dec 15, 2020

Abstract

A controller for controlling a temperature of a building space includes an occupancy sensor configured to measure an occupancy signal indicating whether one or more occupants are within the building space and a processing circuit configured to receive the occupancy signal from the occupancy sensor. The processing circuit is configured to determine whether the number of occupants within the building space has increased by a predefined amount based on the received occupancy signal, decrease a value of a temperature setpoint for the building space from a first value to a second value in response to a determination that the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount based on the received occupancy signal, and reduce the temperature of the building space by controlling one or more pieces of building equipment associated with the building space.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A controller for controlling a temperature of a building space, the controller comprising:
an occupancy gas sensor configured to measure an occupancy gas signal indicating whether one or more occupants are within the building space, wherein the occupancy gas signal indicates an occupant generated gas concentration level within the building space; and
a processing circuit configured to:
receive the occupancy gas signal from the occupancy gas sensor;
generate a gas signal baseline based on a plurality of samples of the occupancy gas signal collected by the controller during deployment of the controller in the building space by periodically updating the gas signal baseline as the plurality of samples of the occupancy gas signal are collected;
determine whether a number of occupants within the building space has increased by a predefined amount based on a comparison of the occupancy gas signal to the gas signal baseline;
preemptively cause a cooling call to be generated by decreasing a value of a temperature setpoint for the building space from a first value to a second value less than the temperature of the building space in response to a determination that the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount based on the occupancy gas signal; and
reduce the temperature of the building space by controlling one or more pieces of building equipment associated with the building space based on the second value of the temperature setpoint in response to the cooling call being generated.

2. The controller of claim 1 , further comprising a temperature sensor configured to measure the temperature associated with the building space, wherein the occupancy gas signal changes at a rate faster than the temperature changes at in response to the number of occupants within the building space changing by the predefined amount;
wherein the processing circuit is configured to reduce the temperature of the building space by controlling the one or more pieces of building equipment associated with the building space based on the second value of the temperature setpoint and the temperature of the building space.

3. The controller of claim 1 , wherein the controller further comprises at least one of a camera configured to record one or more camera signals associated with the building space or a microphone configured to generate audio signals of the building space.

4. The controller of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to control a ventilator associated with the building space to increase a level of ventilation of the building space in response to the determination that the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount based on the occupancy gas signal.

5. The controller of claim 1 , further comprising a camera configured to capture a camera signal associated with the building space;
wherein the processing circuit is configured to:
receive the camera signal from the camera; and
determine whether the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount by:
identifying the number of occupants within the building space based on the camera signal; and
comparing the number of occupants within the building space in the camera signal to a baseline occupancy level.

6. The controller of claim 1 , further comprising a microphone configured to generate an audio signal indicative of sounds generated by occupants within the building space;
wherein the processing circuit is configured to:
receive the audio signal from the microphone; and
determine whether the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount by:
identifying the number of occupants within the building space based on the audio signal; and
comparing the number of occupants to a baseline occupancy level.

7. The controller of claim 1 , wherein the occupant generated gas concentration level is at least one of a carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration level, a volatile organic compound (VOC) concentration level, and a nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentration level.

8. The controller of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to determine whether the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount based on the occupant generated gas concentration level by:
determining a rate at which the occupant generated gas concentration level is increasing based on the occupant generated gas concentration level and one or more other occupant generated gas concentration levels; and
determining that the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount in response to determining that the rate is greater than a predefined rate.

9. The controller of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to:
determine a plurality of baseline levels based on a plurality of additional occupant generated gas concentration levels and store the plurality of baseline levels in a memory device, each of the plurality of baseline levels being associated with a particular time interval; and
determine whether the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount by:
retrieving one of the plurality of baseline levels from the memory device based on a time at which the occupant generated gas concentration level is received from the occupancy gas sensor; and
determine whether the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount by comparing the occupant generated gas concentration level to the retrieved one of the plurality of baseline levels.

10. The controller of claim 9 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to generate the one of the plurality of baseline levels based on the plurality of additional occupant generated gas concentration levels by performing a weighted average of the plurality of additional occupant generated gas concentration levels.

11. The controller of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to determine whether the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount based on the occupant generated gas concentration level by comparing the occupant generated gas concentration level with a baseline.

12. The controller of claim 11 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to:
receive a plurality of additional occupant generated gas concentration levels from the occupancy gas sensor, each of the plurality of additional occupant generated gas concentration levels indicating a particular gas concentration level at a particular time of a plurality of times; and
update the gas signal baseline based on the plurality of additional occupant generated gas concentration levels.

13. The controller of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to preemptively generate a ventilation call by increasing a ventilation level from a first level to a second level.

14. The controller of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to determine whether the number of occupants within the building space has increased by the predefined amount based on the occupancy gas signal based on a baseline value;
wherein the processing circuit is configured to generate the baseline value by:
determining a time associated with no occupancy;
receiving a plurality of values of the occupancy gas signal from the occupancy gas sensor associated with the time; and
generating the baseline value from the plurality of values.

15. A method for controlling a temperature of a building space, the method com

Assignees

• Johnson Controls Tech Co

Inventors

• Ajax Michael J
• Ribbich Joseph R
• Van Derven Nicholas S

Classifications

• F24F11/0001 Primary

  for ventilation (F24F11/30 takes precedence) · CPC title

• F24F2120/10

  Occupancy · CPC title

• G05B2219/2642

  Domotique, domestic, home control, automation, smart house · CPC title

• G05B15/02

  electric · CPC title

• F24F11/80

  for controlling the temperature of the supplied air · CPC title