Towards Multi-agent Systems in Building Automation and Control for Improved Occupant Comfort and Energy Efficiency - State of the Art, Challenges

The major role of buildings and building services is the provision of comfortable living and working environment for users. Currently, buildings utilize up to one-third of total global energy in carrying out its function and it has been identified as a key potential contributor to efforts to enhance security of energy supplies, reduce greenhouse emission and mitigate climate change.Towards achieving this, the use of computational intelligence and behaviour based systems in particular multi-agent systems (MAS)have been proposed for use in building comfort and energy management systems (BECMS)to achieve energy savings as well as improved user satisfaction. However its application in BECMs of large commercial buildings is still very limited. This paper provides a survey of MAS frameworks existing in literature. In addition, insight into some implementation challenges as well as discussion on integrating user behaviour which is a crucial factor pivotal to achieving both comfort and energy savings.