IES 2020 Annual Conference

Occupancy and vacancy sensors have been widely adopted as an energy-saving strategy in buildings, yet published test methods for reproducibly characterizing their performance remain few and limited in their sophistication. Motivated by a desire to fairly characterize new technologies that continue to enter the market and claim not only improved occupancy detection but, in some cases, additional capabilities (e.g., the ability to measure traffic or discern between different object types), this poster presents test condition prototypes for a future test method that might employ suggestions derived from a literature review. This literature review identified and consolidated test conditions for characterizing sensor performance in indoor spaces and identified apparent test method gaps that need to be filled in order to evaluate emerging technologies and products.