Detecting presence and estimating thermal comfort of one or more human occupants in a built space in real-time using one or more thermographic cameras and one or more RGB-D sensors

A method of making a thermal comfort estimation of at least one human occupant in a built space in real-time with the use of at least one thermographic camera and at least one red, green, and blue depth (RGB-D) sensor, the method comprising:

• capturing thermal images of the at least one human occupant in the built space via the at least one thermographic camera from various distances and various angles of the at least one human occupant relative to the at least one thermographic camera, and
• capturing RGB-D images of the at least one human occupant in the built space via the at least one RGB-D sensor from various distances and various angles of the at least one human occupant relative to the at least one RGB-D sensor;
• extracting facial skin temperatures of the at least one human occupant using the captured thermal images and the captured RGB-D images, distance data provided from the at least one RGB-D sensor is used with temperature data provided from the at least one thermographic camera;
• and
• estimating the thermal comfort of the at least one human occupant in the built space using the extracted facial skin temperature of the at least one human occupant.

A method of making a thermal comfort estimation of at least one human occupant in a built space in real-time with the use of at least one thermographic camera and at least one red, green, and blue depth (RGB-D) sensor, the method comprising:

• capturing thermal images of the at least one human occupant in the built space via the at least one thermographic camera, and capturing RGB-D images of the at least one human occupant in the built space via the at least one RGB-D sensor;
• extracting facial skin temperatures of the at least one human occupant using the captured thermal images and the captured RGB-D images, wherein extracting facial skin temperatures involves locating coordinates in the captured RGB-D images onto the captured thermal images;
• estimating the thermal comfort of the at least one human occupant in the built space using the extracted facial skin temperature of the at least one human occupant;
• and
• controlling heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) of the built space based on the estimated thermal comfort of the at least one human occupant;
• wherein capturing thermal images of the at least one human occupant in the built space involves capturing the thermal images from various angles of the at least one human occupant relative to the at least one thermographic camera, and capturing RGB-D images of the at least one human occupant in the built space involves capturing the RGB-D images from various angles of the at least one human occupant relative to the at least one RGB-D sensor.