Future of Buildings: Graduate Insights and Innovations

“A Novel Approach to Generate Occupancy Schedules Based on Human Mobility and LSTM-GAN/VAE Model”
Presenter: Yiting Yang, second-year Ph.D. student at Syracuse University in the Built Environment Science and Technology (BEST) Laboratory, working with Dr. Bing Dong. Yang’s research focuses on occupancy behavior and human mobility.

Occupant behavior significantly impacts urban energy consumption, yet urban building energy modeling (UBEM) often relies on simplistic occupancy schedules, leading to performance gaps. This study use GPS mobility data to generate data-driven occupancy schedules by Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) for 700+ buildings in Phoenix, AZ. VAEs produce smoother distributions with stable performance, while GANs capture peak occupancy but with higher volatility. These generated schedules were integrated into UBEM for this research area, replacing standard schedules. Simulation results showed energy consumption variations of ±5% to ±20%, highlighting the importance of data-driven schedules in improving urban building energy simulation.

Hosted by the ASHRAE Student Branch at Syracuse University, “Future of Buildings: Graduate Insights and Innovations” presentations are held every other Thursday at 727 E. Washington St. Lunch is provided and free parking is available onsite. Please RSVP to attend.

Learn more RSVP now