Process Control for Thermal Comfort Maintenance Using Fuzzy Logic

This paper presents the application of fuzzy process control and maintenance of thermal comfort in a measurement laboratory. A new systemic approach to process control is described with special emphasis on the human factor, the measurer, who is a constituent part of the feedback loop. For the conventional thermal comfort maintenance process control a correction is provided in accordance with personal experience, while retaining reference values within margins permissible by the applicable standard. Based on the research results, it has been decided, as well as implemented, to incorporate the personal feeling of comfort by applying the fuzzy sequence control. During research, for the needs of thermal comfort control, a linguistic deductive model has been developed whereby all possible linguistic demands for thermal comfort changes are described. Apart from this model, a model of heat and material accumulation in the observed space has been developed, aimed to confirm the applicability of the proposed theory of thermal comfort process control. The present paper is a new contribution to the theory of thermal comfort control, which has so far solely relied on the stabilization of thermodynamic variables.