Congratulations!! Dr. Choi's research, titled "Human-Building Integration: Bio-Sensing Adaptive Environmental Control for Human Health and Sustainability", is awarded a National Science Foundation Research Grant Award in August 2017. The NSF program is the Environmental Sustainability in the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport System. The research will be sponsored for three years with $300,000. The research is very interdisciplinary. Multiple scholars/researchers will participate in the research as collaborators, including faculty in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science, and Psychology/Medicine, and also industry partners, such as Buro Happold Engineering, USGBC, and SIEMENS.



Research Overview: Existing human-building interactive techniques related to environmental controls rely heavily on users’ occupancy data and system-centered approaches. However, user’s passive responses are still required, which can hinder the efficiency of system operations. The outcome of this project will lead to human-based systems controls that will utilize a user’s real time physiological responses as input variables in the control system loop. The proposed approach will be based on the principle of using the human body as an integrated sensory device that will allow the environmental control system to be much simpler, yet be more functionally robust, while minimizing the system’s faults and malfunctions. Therefore, the research outcome will enhance fundamental knowledge about and create a novel approach to the interpretation of physiological signals, as applied to building environmental controls. This will, in turn, fill the integrative research gap between building systems and human physiology in the engineering domain. The knowledge and technology to be generated from this proposed project will provide scalable, integrative, and transformative solutions for real-world issues (e.g., people’s wellbeing and environmental sustainability).