> Research Results > The Development of an Energy-saving System, "BeHomeS", which Automatically Responds to Living ConditionsThe National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) (President: Tamotsu Nomakuchi), Toshiba Corporation (Director, President and CEO: Norio Sasaki), Shimizu Corporation (President: Yoichi Miyamoto), Toshiba Home Appliances Corporation (President: Fumio Yamashita), Kandenko Co., Ltd. (President: Manabu Yamaguchi), Toshiba Electric Appliances Co., Ltd. (President: Takeshi Nagasaka), Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd. (President: Naofumi Negishi), and Advanced Simulation Technology of Mechanics R&D, Co., Ltd. (President: Tomoaki Ando) have developed a technology presuming living behavior via information from operating equipment in a house through an in-home network, and have experimentally built up an energy-saving system that responds to living behavior (BeHomeS: Behavior-based Home Monitoring and Energy-saving System). It, thereby, enables a reasonable conservation of energy in a daily life. This was carried out through "Research and development of the energy-saving system responding to living behavior (BeHomeS)" (FY2007 to FY2009) (personnel in charge of development: Katsunori Matsuoka, Deputy Director-General, Planning Headquarters, AIST) in the Strategic Development of Energy Conservation Technology Project/Leading research phase of New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). In this project, we have constructed a pilothouse equipped with BeHomeS, and plan to verify the energy-saving effect by an experiment involving a family of four who would actually live in this house for half a year from August onward.
BeHomeS not only automatically turns off lighting fixtures and air-conditioning equipments, etc., that are left switched on but also automatically reduces energy consumption in the following ways: (1) it controls the hot-water supply by avoiding the needless heating of water based on the estimation of the amount of hot water usually used daily, (2) it reduces the energy consumption required for a living environment by appropriately combining the usage or shielding of daylight, shielding of heat from out-side, and ventilation through windows with the operation of lighting fixtures and air-conditioning equipments, and (3) it controls lighting and air-conditioning to suit each daily life scene. By using BeHomeS, it is expected that energy-saving can be continuously done without forcing uncomfortableness or the burdensome operation of appliances upon the house's residents. The system controls home appliances automatically to maintain optimum living conditions according to the presumed living scenes.
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| Pilothouse for a residence experiment for a family of four |
In our country, the total energy consumption at home is continuously increasing due to the requirement of large and many appliances. Although the energy-saving ability of individual equipments, such as air-conditioning machines, televisions, and boilers, have greatly improved, the energy consumption for each home in the fiscal year of 2007 was 1.4 times that in the fiscal year of 1973 ("Annual report concerning energy in FY2008" compiled by Agency for Natural Resources and Energy). Therefore, it becomes essential to develop a new energy-saving technology that can reduce the needless energy by an optimized cooperation of all home equipments. Moreover, a technology that can achieve energy conservation without burdening the house's residents would be expected to spread widely to homes.
AIST has previously developed a technology that measured and accumulated information regarding living activities seamlessly in a house. Further, AIST has also developed a real-time life support technology that supports emergency calls and facilitates health care by automatically detecting any deviation from usual living activities; this was carried out under "Technology for sophisticating household equipment to support dwellers" in "Behavior-Based Human Environment Creation Technology" (FY1999 to FY2003) sponsored by NEDO, along with the Research Institute of Human Engineering for Quality Life and others. In this project, we developed a technology that converted into the time series of 13 kinds of living behaviors from the sensor data based upon pyroelectric infrared sensor and operating information of electrical equipment in a house, such as lighting fixtures and home electric appliances. Our findings demonstrated that living behaviors of dwellers could be estimated with ~70% accuracy on an average through a residence experiment in a pilothouse for 1 month.
In this leading research project, we have experimentally produced an energy-saving system (Refer to Figure 1 and Figure 2), which controls unnecessary electrical usage by understanding the living conditions in the house based on living behaviors and information from electrical equipment in the house and subsequently achieving optimal operation of such equipment while preserving the residents' favored living conditions. This process achieves the continuous conservation of energy without inconveniencing the residents. For experimental purposes, we developed a behavior presumption engine that estimated living behaviors from sensor information and operating information of home equipment; these data provided the basis for energy-saving operations. We developed home appliances responding to cooperation control, a lighting environment control system for lighting fixtures, and a thermal environment control system for air conditioners, etc. which will be operated based on the presumed living behaviors.
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| Figure 1. Outline of research and development |
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| Figure 2. Composition of the energy-saving system responding to living behaviors |
In fiscal year 2009, which is the final fiscal year of this research project, we decided to extensively evaluate the functioning and effectiveness of the entire developed system by a test in a pilothouse where this system, integrating all developed technologies and equipment, had been built. When the rules of energy-saving control on BeHomeS were applied to the operation data of electric home appliances etc. collected from existing houses in winter, it was estimated that energy conservation of ~12% might be achieved. In this project, we aim to verify the effectiveness of the energy-saving methods in a real-life situation by experimentally setting up the BeHomeS system in the pilothouse.
The BeHomeS system studies residents' living behavior, subsequently operates equipment matching to the residents' favored living conditions, and thereby achieves conservation of energy. Therefore, the energy-saving effect that can be achieved would be different for each home depending upon the living conditions therein. In this project, we aim to achieve energy savings of ~10% on an average while the residents lead their lives naturally without considering the conservation of energy.
In this research project, we have advanced research in this field with a focus on clarifying problems in the energy-saving technology concerned with cooperative controls of equipment and appliances based on occupants' behavior; we have also confirmed the possibility of the development of this system for practical application. We expect to execute the research and development for practical applications in approximately 5–6 years after this project is completed, and to substantiate such practical applications thereafter. Moreover, the operation of an intelligent system with a behavior presumption engine is expected to begin in 2016–2018.
