Sustainable comfort in indoor environments: global comfort indices and virtual sensors.

The purpose of this research is to identify a methodology for predicting perceived comfort from measured physical parameters in a given indoor environment. Firstly, aspects of comfort are investigated in order to understand how it is possible to carry out a global comfort assessment in indoor environments. This study makes it possible to provide a review of the main comfort indices. Secondly, a wireless Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) logger system is designed, comprising hardware, software components, and data analysis. The process of IEQ data collection and processing is divided into multiple steps: implementation, deployment, data collection, data analysis, model building and characterization. Eventually, a virtual sensor that estimates the perceived global comfort index, automatically choosing and characterizing the model with the lowest error, is developed. This is aimed at studying comfort in optimized control systems for sustainable buildings.