Publications de Darren Robinson

A bottom-up stochastic model to predict building occupants' time-dependent activities

Jean-Louis Scartezzini, Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi, Urs Wilke

A bottom-up modelling approach together with a set of calibration methodologies is presented to predict residential building occupants' time-dependent activities, for use in dynamic building simulations. The stochastic model to predict activity chains is c ...

Elsevier2013

Verification of stochastic models of window opening behaviour for residential buildings

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

Based on the analyses of data from two distinct measurement campaigns conducted in residential indoor environments in Japan and Switzerland, we identify the specificities of occupants' behaviour with respect to their interactions with windows, including th ...

Taylor & Francis2012

Multi agent simulation of occupants' presence and behaviour

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi, Urs Wilke

2011

Impact of urban morphology on building energy needs: a review on knowledge gained from modeling and monitoring activities

Darren Robinson, Olivier August Pol

Urban morphology is one of the main parameters influencing directly and indirectly buildings’ energy needs. Despite an increasing number of urban energy and environmental modelling tools addressing these issues, the complexity of physical relationships at ...

EPFL2011

Modelling occupants’ personal characteristics for thermal comfort prediction

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

Based on results from a field survey campaign conducted in Switzerand, we show that occupants’ variations in clothing choices, which are relatively unconstrained, are best described by the daily mean outdoor temperature and that major clothing adjustments ...

Springer-Verlag2011

CITYSIM simulation: the case study of Alt-Wiedikon, a neighbourhood of Zürich City

Jérôme Henri Kämpf, Diane Perez, Darren Robinson, Urs Wilke, Maria Papadopoulou

As research in building energy demand simulation is reaching maturity, there is now a growing interest in the evaluation of the energy need of larger and/or pre-existing urban areas [1, 2, 3], to evaluate the energy performance associated with alternative ...

EPFL2011

THE IMPACT OF OCCUPANTS’ BEHAVIOUR ON URBAN ENERGY DEMAND

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

Using extensive field survey data acquired over the past seven years at the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory at EPFL in Switzerland, models of occupants’ presence, opening and closing of windows and the raising and lowering of blinds have been ...

TU Vienna2010

Solar radiation modelling for urban environments

Darren Robinson

In this paper we briefly describe three alternative techniques for modelling solar radiation in the urban context. These include the use of: (i) simple morphological parameters as indicators of radiation availability, (ii) a ray-tracing program in conjunct ...

Université de Technologie Compiègne2010

Optimisation of building form for solar energy utilisation using constrained evolutionary algorithms

Jérôme Henri Kämpf, Darren Robinson

In this paper we describe a new methodology for optimising building and urban geometric forms for the utilisation of solar irradiation, whether by passive or active means. For this we use a new evolutionary algorithm(a hybrid CMA-ES/HDE algorithm) to searc ...

Elsevier2010

Adaptive actions on shading devices in response to local visual stimuli

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

Based on 6 years of continuous measurements, we have analysed in detail the occupancy, thermal and visual parameters influencing actions on shading devices in order to derive an accurate model for the prediction of their usage in office buildings. This art ...

2010

Results from the monitoring of indoor environment and occupant perceived productivity in office buildings

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

Based on almost 18 months of continuous direct measurements coupled with an electronic questionnaire, we have analysed the influence of indoor temperature and illuminance, outdoor climate parameters, thermal and visual sensation, clothing and season on the ...

2010

A PARTIAL DOUBLE BLIND EVALUATION OF A COMPREHENSIVE WINDOW OPENING MODEL

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

One of the key sources of uncertainty in building simulation relates to the presence and behaviour of occupants. Fortunately, several academic groups have been working to address this uncertainty, particularly in relation to the use of windows and the corr ...

2010

On the unification of thermal perception and adaptive actions

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

Occupants exercise adaptive actions in response to discomforting environmental stimuli in an attempt to restore their comfort. These responses to adaptive actions are either ignored (conventional PMV models) or handled in an aggregated way (adaptive therma ...

Elsevier2010

A comparison of global optimisation algorithms with standard benchmark functions and real-world applications using EnergyPlus

Jérôme Henri Kämpf, Darren Robinson

There is an increasing interest in the use of computer algorithms to identify combinations of parameters which optimise the energy performance of buildings. For such problems, the objective function can be multi-modal and needs to be approximated numerical ...

Taylor & Francis2010

From the neighbourhood to the city : resource flow modelling for urban sustainability

Jérôme Henri Kämpf, Diane Perez, Darren Robinson, Adil Rasheed, Frédéric Haldi, Urs Wilke, Philippe Leroux

Agreed intergovernmental targets to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases due to predominantly urban anthropogenic activities are becoming increasingly stringent; one might even say ambitious. One crucial strategy in achieving these targets will be to im ...

EPFL2009

Energy modelling of city housing stock and its temporal evolution

Darren Robinson, Nataliya Filchakova, Urs Wilke

2009

Explosion of energy demand for air cooling in summer: perspectives and solutions (EEDACS)

Claude-Alain Roulet, Philippe Renaud, Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

The Swiss Federal Office of Energy has published directives in order to limit the increase of electrical energy consumption to a maximum of 5% in 2010 in comparison with 2000. To reach this goal, clear measures have to be taken regarding the installation a ...

EPFL2009

A hybrid CMA-ES and HDE optimisation algorithm with application to solar energy potential

Jérôme Henri Kämpf, Darren Robinson

This paper describes the results of initial experiments to apply computational algorithms to explore a large parameter space containing many variables in the search for an optimal solution for the sustainable design of an urban development using a potentia ...

2009

Interactions with window openings by office occupants

Darren Robinson, Frédéric Haldi

Based on almost seven years of continuous measurements, we have analysed in detail the influence of occupancy patterns, indoor temperature and outdoor climate parameters (temperature, wind speed and direction, relative humidity and rainfall) on window open ...

2009

Optimisation of buildings solar irradiation availability

Marylène Montavon, Raffaele Bolliger, Jérôme Henri Kämpf, Josep Bunyesc Palacín, Darren Robinson

In order to improve the sustainability of new and existing urban settlements it is desirable to maximise the utilisation of the solar energy incident on the building envelope, whether by passive or active means. To this end we have coupled a multi-objectiv ...

2009