GRI Faculty Affiliate Michael Kane Awarded a $763K NSF CAREER Award for “Human-Centric Automation in the Built Environment.”
The objective of this Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) project is to enable the design of automation in the built environment that models human physiological and behavioral responses to changing environmental temperature conditions to satisfy competing objectives of energy management and occupant comfort. This project will use laboratory-based human subject studies and field studies involving 100 consumer households to develop methods and models for understanding how human thermal comfort and behavior (thermal setpoint control overrides) adapt to dynamic thermal environments. The goal is to develop an adaptive controller that incorporates a dynamic model of occupant comfort, which will allow temporary comfort deviations that nevertheless avoid setpoint overrides.
CEE Assistant Professor Michael Kane was awarded a $763K NSF CAREER Award for “Human-Centric Automation in the Built Environment.” The project will enable the design of automation in the built environment that models human physiological and behavioral responses to changing environmental temperature conditions to satisfy competing objectives of energy management and occupant comfort.
Kane joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Spring 2017 as an assistant professor. He earned his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering – Systems from the University of Michigan. His research focus is in the areas of occupant-centric building controls, community resilience, model predictive control, and hybrid systems.