Gary A. Dage

An intelligent automotive climate control system

An intelligent automotive climate control system based on human-sensory response is developed and described in this paper. The system uses the skin temperature of the vehicle occupant, measured by a passive remote infrared sensor, and an intelligent controller to improve the perceived thermal comfort of the occupant. Thermal comfort is characterized in terms of a set of comfortable skin temperatures for different climate conditions. The controller monitors and regulates the skin temperature and air temperature to maintain the desired thermal comfort level. The new system not only increases the robustness of the controller, also renders a structure for a fully automatic (with minimal human intervention) climate control system.