Applied Sciences (Jun 2020)

Central Heating Cost Optimization for Smart-Homes with Fuzzy Logic and a Multi-Agent Architecture

  • Diego M. Jiménez-Bravo,
  • Álvaro Lozano Murciego,
  • Daniel H. de la Iglesia,
  • Juan F. De Paz,
  • Gabriel Villarrubia González

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/app10124057
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 12
p. 4057

Abstract

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Recent years have defined the need to reduce gas emissions to fight climate change, and society’s move to green energies is important to make responsible use of non-renewable energies. Therefore, it is now important to use technologies to optimize the use of actual energy sources. In this aspect, the Internet of Things (IoT) technology has had a great impact on society. Hence, this research work aims to use IoT technology and multi-agent systems to optimize the use of central heating installation in buildings. It is intended to improve the user’s comfort, reduce the consumption of energy and reduce the financial costs. Therefore, a multi-agent system is proposed to collect data from sensors located in a smart-home and obtain the best action to perform in a central heating system. The decisions will be taken by an intelligent agent based on fuzzy logic. This technology will allow for generating the control action with a fuzzy controller. The results obtained show that the proposal improves the actual system in terms of users’ comfort and financial and energy savings.

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