ABSTRACT

Thermal comfort provision is a relevant aspect of the project of artificial environments. The quality of life in homes, offices, and vehicles is strongly dependent on the capacity to reach and maintain the best ambient condition for the occupant. Today, the possibility of realizing personalized HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) systems and providing a more distributed and personalized climatic control seems no longer illusionary, however, despite this fascinating and interesting perspective, the control of these and classical systems, is not so efficient. It is worth noting that, in our daily life experience, obtaining a fully comfortable environment may be extremely difficult; for instance, how often do we discuss fan temperature and ventilation set in our work place? In fact, to date, there is a great gap between the potentiality offered by HVAC technologies, and the way of controlling those systems to satisfy the users comfort.