Automotive Thermal Comfort Control – a Black- Box Approach

Thermal comfort is a very vague and a very individual term, which depends on physiological and psychological variables. Thermal comfort in transient environments, like an automotive cabin, is far from understood and general accepted theories do not yet exist. This paper investigates the concept of using a black-box approach for directly associating thermal comfort to field measurements. Artificial intelligence is used to predict blower level, air blend position and incabin temperature for a given environment. The results are promising and it is concluded that methods of artificial intelligence can be used as a powerful tool during the development process of vehicle HVAC control units and have great potential to reduce development time and costs.