Boston University

Cyber Materials LLC

Aeolus Building Efficiency

Michael Alan Gevelber

Donald Edward Wroblewski

Brian Louis Vattiat

James R Fincke

Thomas D C Little

William David Swank

Prakash Ishwar

Delon C Haggard

Donald Edward Wroblewsky

Janusz L Konrad

Donald Wroblewski

Adam Scott Brewster

Paul D Gallagher

Randy Lee Bewley

Manuel Toledo-Quinones

Sensing and control apparatus for a building HVAC system includes interior and boundary sensors, such as cameras and thermal sensors, generating sensor signals conveying occupancy-related features for an area. A controller uses the sensor signals to produce an occupancy estimate and to generate equipment-control signals to cause the HVAC system to supply conditioned air to the area based on the occupancy estimate. The controller includes fusion systems collectively generating the occupancy estimate by corresponding fusion calculations, the fusion systems producing a boundary occupancy-count change based on sensor signals from the boundary sensors, an interior occupancy count based on sensor signals from the interior sensors, and the overall occupancy estimate. Fusion may be of one or multiple types including cross-modality fusion across different sensor types, within-modality fusion across different instances of same-type sensors, and cross-algorithm fusion using different algorithms for the same sensor(s).

Fusion-based occupancy sensing for building systems

An airflow system includes a damper apparatus configured to adjust a flow volume of recirculated air and a flow volume of outside air within the airflow system, a variable air volume (VAV) apparatus disposed in fluid communication with the damper apparatus, and a controller disposed in operative communication with the damper apparatus and the VAV apparatus. The controller is configured to determine a percentage of outside air provided to the airflow system by the damper apparatus, determine a minimum flow volume provided by the VAV apparatus of the airflow system, which relates a required flow volume of outside air provided by the VAV apparatus to a zone and the percentage of outside air provided to the airflow system by the damper apparatus, and adjust a flow volume of air provided by the VAV apparatus to the zone based upon the determined minimum flow volume provided by the VAV apparatus.

Integrated airflow control for variable air volume and air handler HVAC systems to reduce building HVAC energy use

An HVAC system employs a technique built around a system identification/modeling method that determines critical building loads and airflows experimentally without relying on design plans or statistical modeling approaches. Operation includes observing the dynamic response of individual room temperature, in response to a change of inlet air flow conditions (either air flow rate and/or supply air temperature). This empirically-based model enables development of an optimized control approach that minimizes conditioned airflow while meeting required ventilation, thermal, and humidification performance objectives. Building-wide performance is achieved by aggregating empirically determined room-level loads, thus ensuring that the coupled performance objectives can be achieved while minimizing energy use for every space within a building.

Automated technique of measuring room air change rates in HVAC system

A method of measuring parameters of a particle includes providing a particle, wherein the particle has a first portion and a second portion. The process includes providing a column of photo-detectors including a first photo-detector and a second photo-detector, wherein the first photo-detector and the second photo-detector are sensitive to the same range of light frequencies. Light is projected from the particle onto the column of photo-detectors wherein the column of photo-detectors is oriented so the light from the first portion is projected onto the first photo-detector and light from the second portion is projected onto the second photo-detector. Light measured by the first photo-detector differs from light measured by the second photo-detector. The process further includes using the different first and the second photo-detector measurements to determine at least one from the group consisting of particle temperature and particle diameter.

Particle state and flux sensor

An improved automatic feedback control scheme enhances plasma spraying of powdered material through reduction of process variability and providing better ability to engineer coating structure. The present inventors discovered that controlling centroid position of the spatial distribution along with other output parameters, such as particle temperature, particle velocity, and molten mass flux rate, vastly increases control over the sprayed coating structure, including vertical and horizontal cracks, voids, and porosity. It also allows improved control over graded layers or compositionally varying layers of material, reduces variations, including variation in coating thickness, and allows increasing deposition rate. Various measurement and system control schemes are provided.

Feedback enhanced plasma spray tool

A method of characterizing an electron beam is described, comprising providing a system including an electron gun having a steering coil. A material having a surface is also provided. An electron beam from said electron gun is directed to said surface. The directing includes providing a first current to the steering coil to direct the electron beam to a first point on the surface and then providing a second current to the steering coil to direct the electron beam to a second point on the surface. An imaging system is mounted for viewing said surface. An image is collected based on light emitted from the surface because of the electron beam directed at the first point and the second point. A light intensity is determined at the first point and at the second point.

E-beam vision system for monitoring and control

The present invention is directed to a method of controlling the application of a surface coating by chemical deposition using a closed loop control on growth rate. The method compares a measure of growth rate against a setpoint for the growth rate and adjusts a primary input parameter in order to drive/maintain the measure of growth rate equal to the setpoint.

Growing community of inventors

Newton, MA, United States of America

Michael Alan Gevelber