METHOD OF UTILIZING AIR CONDITIONER TO CONTROL THERMAL COMFORT LEVEL OF ENVIRONMENT

• US 20090159717A1
• Filed: 12/19/2007
• Published: 06/25/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Institute For Information Industry
• Original Assignee: Institute For Information Industry
• Inventors: Tu, Wei-Jyun, Tsai, Kun-Cheng
• Granted Patent: US 7,886,984 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 236/44.A
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/30 for purposes related to the operation of the system, e.g. for safety or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/46 Improving electric energy efficiency or saving
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/62 characterised by the type of control or by internal processing, e.g. using fuzzy logic, adaptive control or estimation of values
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/65 for selecting an operating mode
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 2110/50 Air quality properties
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 27/02 characterised by the use of electric means
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 30/70 Efficient control or regulation technologies, e.g. for control of refrigerant flow, motor or heating

Abstract

The present invention provides a method of utilizing an air conditioner to control a thermal comfort level of an environment, wherein the air conditioner includes a plurality of environment factor adjusting devices. The method of the present invention reduces energy consumption of the air conditioner when utilizing the air conditioner to improve the thermal comfort level of an environment.

Claims

1. A method of utilizing an air conditioner to control a thermal comfort level of an environment, the air conditioner including a plurality of environment factor adjusting devices, the method comprising:

determining whether enter an energy saving mode;

when entering the energy saving mode, performing the following step;

(a) generating a target predicted mean vote (PMV) value according to an input signal;

(b) detecting a plurality of environment factors of the environment at present to generate a PMV value as a current thermal comfort level detecting value;

(c) obtaining a plurality of PMV-EER values respectively corresponding to the environment factor adjusting devices according to a difference value between the target PMV value and the current thermal comfort level detecting value;

(d) determining which one of the environment factor adjusting devices has a greatest PMV-EER value, and choosing it to perform an adjusting operation for the thermal comfort level of the environment;

(e) calculating a PMV value of the environment after the adjusting operation is performed to update the current thermal comfort level detecting value;

(f) determining whether a difference value between the current thermal comfort level detecting value and the target PMV value is smaller than a predetermined threshold value; and

(g) when the difference value of the current thermal comfort level detecting value and the target PMV value is not smaller than the predetermined threshold value, repeating steps (c), (d), (e), and (f) until the difference value between the current thermal comfort level detecting value and the target PMV value becomes smaller than the predetermined threshold value.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the environment factor adjusting devices comprise a temperature adjusting device, a humidity adjusting device, and an air velocity adjusting device, and the environment factors comprise temperature, humidity, and air velocity.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the input signal comprises a temperature adjusting signal, a humidity adjusting signal, and an air velocity adjusting signal.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(h) when the difference value of the current thermal comfort level detecting value and the target PMV value is smaller than the predetermined threshold value, determining whether there is another input signal received;

(i) when there is another input signal received, repeating steps (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), and (f); and

(j) when there is no other input signal received, ending operation of controlling thermal comfort level of the environment.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined threshold value is not greater than 0.01.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined threshold value is not greater than 0.5.