An occupant behavior modeling tool for co-simulation

Publication Type

Journal Article

Authors

Abstract

Traditionally, in building energy modeling (BEM) programs, occupant behavior (OB) inputs are deter-ministic and less indicative of real world scenarios, contributing to discrepancies between simulated andactual energy use in buildings. This paper presents a new OB modeling tool, with an occupant behaviorfunctional mock-up unit (obFMU) that enables co-simulation with BEM programs implementing func-tional mock-up interface (FMI). The components detailed in the development of the obFMU include anoverview of the DNAS (drivers-needs-actions-systems) ontology and the occupant behavior eXtensibleMarkup Language (obXML) schema, in addition to details on the creation of the obFMU that containsthe co-simulation interface, the data model and solvers. To demonstrate functionality of the tool, threeexamples of occupant behaviors were simulated, including: (1) turning on and off lights, (2) opening andclosing windows, and (3) turning on and off the air conditioners. The obFMU can be used via co-simulationwith all building simulation programs that implement the FMI, thus users are not limited to a particulartool. Another advantage is the use of obXML schema to represent occupant behavior, standardize thedescription of occupant behavior enabling information exchange.

Journal

Energy and Buildings

Year of Publication

2015

Organization

Research Areas

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