Network of Sensor and Actuator Agents for Building Automation Systems

Due to at least two reasons, energy consumption for heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) and domestic hot water (DHW) systems should be reduced. First, the total energy consumption is high since nearly 20% of total energy in USA is accounted for HVAC systems. Sencond reason is exploitation of renevable energy sources, which depend on current time and weather situation. Thus, the energy management should improve to effective by managing currently available energy. For this purpose, the sensor actor agent network is proposed with an example on domestic hot water heating, taking into account several aspects including the occupant presence. The simulation model was used, where the water consumption affected system dynamics. The agent-based schema combined with the simulator enables an occupant to choose the most subjectively desirable policy of the DHW control mechanism.