Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The applicants are conducting cutting-edge research on occupant-centric building design and operation, emphasizing the development of advanced Occupant-Centric Control (OCC) strategies to optimize building operations while maintaining occupant comfort. Their work also addresses building resilience during emergencies, such as extreme weather events and power outages, where occupant comfort and health become critical. To support their research, they urgently require a thermal manikin system, uniquely capable of simulating occupants' physiological responses and heat transfer under varying environmental conditions. This equipment is essential because their current methods, which involve recruiting human subjects or relying on simplified assumptions, face logistical and ethical challenges in continuously monitoring human physiological responses. Without this equipment, their research may be delayed or its impact may be reduced, especially as the commonly used simulation approaches also lack the rigor needed to account for the complexity of these aspects. The requested manikin will play a pivotal role in the applicants' research programs. Firstly, it will help establish quantitative metrics for occupant thermal responses to inform the development of indoor environmental control strategies. Secondly, it will aid in developing resilience strategies to minimize occupant discomfort and health risks during extreme weather events and extended power outages. The applicants' research program also focuses on integrating advanced control strategies with Personalized Comfort Systems (PCS) to optimize building operation under a wide range of scenarios. Moreover, they are devoted to fostering Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in their research by considering underrepresented groups in comfort research, such as senior, unhealthy, and individuals with disabilities, whose thermal sensation is significantly different from that of healthy occupants, and are more vulnerable to overheating or overcooling. The requested equipment will not only facilitate their research but also serve as a valuable tool for training a diverse pool of highly qualified personnel, helping them gain the skills necessary for careers in research, industry, or policy-making. It will empower trainees with hands-on experience in quantifying thermal comfort-related metrics and contribute to addressing critical research gaps in the field. The core team of applicants, who represent a diverse and gender-inclusive team of researchers across various career stages, have a strong track record of training HQP and have established collaborations with industry partners and international research networks, making their research programs a significant asset to the field of building engineering.