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A Global Building Occupant Behavior Database
Bing Dong1, Yapan Liu2, Wei Mu2
1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University, 223 Link Hall, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA. bidong@syr.edu.
Scientific Data
|June 28, 2022
Summary
A new global database details building occupant behavior, including presence and interactions with systems. This resource enhances building energy simulations by providing realistic human-building interaction data.
Area of Science:
- Building Science
- Human-Building Interaction
- Data Science
Background:
- Understanding occupant behavior is crucial for accurate building energy modeling.
- Existing datasets are often limited in scope and geographical diversity.
- Realistic human-building interaction data is needed to improve building performance predictions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a comprehensive, global database of field-measured building occupant behavior.
- To provide detailed occupancy patterns and occupant interactions with building systems and envelopes.
- To facilitate improved building energy simulation and load forecasting through realistic occupant data.
Main Methods:
- Collected 34 field-measured building occupant behavior datasets from 15 countries and 39 institutions.
- Covered 10 climatic zones and diverse commercial and residential building types.
- Developed Brick schema models for sensor and room metadata; made the database publicly accessible online.
Main Results:
- Established a comprehensive global database of building occupant behavior.
- Included data on occupancy patterns (presence, count) and specific occupant behaviors (interactions with systems/envelopes).
- Created an interactive website for public data access, querying, and downloading.
Conclusions:
- The database advances knowledge of realistic occupancy patterns and human-building interactions.
- Enables building designers, energy modelers, and consultants to improve simulation accuracy.
- Supports more accurate building energy simulation and load forecasting with realistic occupant schedules and interactions.
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