Muddasser Alam

Applying extended kalman filters to adaptive thermal modelling in homes: poster abstract

A key challenge for intelligent domestic heating systems is to obtain sufficient knowledge of the thermal dynamics of the home to build an adaptive thermal model. We present a study where stochastic grey-box modelling is used to develop thermal models and an extended Kalman filter is used for parameter estimation for a room in a family home.

A negotiation protocol for multiple interdependent issues negotiation over energy exchange

We present a novel negotiation protocol to facilitate energy exchange between off-grid homes that are equipped with renewable energy generation and electricity storage. Our solution imposes additional constraints on negotiation such that it reduces a complex interdependent multi-issue problem to one that is tractable. We prove that using our protocol, agents can reach a Pareto-optimal, dominant strategy equilibrium in a decentralized and timely fashion. We empirically evaluate our approach in a realistic setting. In this case, we show that energy exchange can be useful in reducing the capacity of the energy storage devices in homes by close to 40%.

Applying extended kalman filters to adaptive thermal modelling in homes

ABSTRACT Space-heating accounts for more than 40% of residential energy consumption in some countries (e.g. the UK and the US) and thus is a key area to address for energy efficiency improvement. To do so, intelligent domestic heating systems (IDHS) equipped with sensors and technologies that minimize user-input, have been proposed for optimal heating control in homes. However, a key challenge for IDHS is to obtain sufficient knowledge of the thermal dynamics of the home to build a thermal model that can reliably predict the spatial and temporal effects of its actions (e.g. turning the heating on or off or use of multiple heaters). This challenge of learning a thermal model has been studied extensively for decades in large purpose-built buildings (such as offices, educational, commercial or communal residential buildings) where machine learning is used to infer suitable thermal models. However, we believe that the technological gap between homes and buildings is fast vanishing with the advent of home automation and cloud computing, and the techniques and lessons learned in purpose-built buildings are increasingly applicable to homes too; with necessary modifications to tackle the challenges unique to homes (e.g. impact of household activities, diverse heating systems, more lenient occupancy schedule). Following this philosophy, we present a methodical study where stochastic grey-box modelling is used to develop thermal models and an extended Kalman filter (EKF) is used for parameter estimation. To demonstrate the applicability in homes, we present the case-study of a room in a family house equipped with underfloor heating and custom-built .NET Gadgeteer hardware. We built grey-box models and use the EKF to infer the thermal model of the room. In doing so, we use our in-house collected data to show that, in this instance, our thermal model predicts the indoor air temperature where the 95th percentile of the absolute prediction error is and for 2 and 4 hours predictions, respectively; in contrast to the corresponding and errors of the existing (historical-average based) thermal model.

Meaningful Consent Study 2 Dataset

Data supporting: Baarslag, Tim et al. (2017) An Automated Negotiation Agent for Permission Management. In, AAMAS 2017: 16th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.Additional Scenario file added 02/08/2017

Towards a Smart Home Framework

We present our Smart Home Framework (SHF) which simplifies the modelling, prototyping and simulation of smart infrastructure (i.e., smart home and smart communities). It provides the buildings blocks (e.g., home appliances) that can be extended and assembled together to build a smart infrastructure model to which appropriate AI techniques can be applied. This approach enables rapid modelling where new research initiatives can build on existing work.