Optimal location of wireless temperature sensor nodes in large-scale rooms

In a large-scale room, temperature distribution will not always be even due to the unevenly distributed and time-varying load. In order to supervise and optimize the operation of airconditioning systems in terms of energy efficiency and thermal comfort, it is necessary to monitor the temperature distribution and its variation in real time. Real-time temperature distribution can be generated using the measurements from a wireless temperature sensor network. When the number of sensor nodes is limited, the locations of sensor nodes become important for the accuracy of the real-time generated distribution. This paper defines optimal locations for wireless sensor nodes installation and proposes a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) aided method to identify optimal locations. The proposed method was applied to a wireless temperature sensor network installed in a large-scale room in Hong Kong. Case studies show that when the location of wireless temperature sensors is optimized using the proposed method, the accuracy of real-time generated temperature distribution can be improved significantly.