Local Warming system creates 'thermal cloud' for individuals

Local Warming is a system that uses Wi-Fi based motion tracking and ceiling-mounted dynamic heating elements to project heat directly onto individuals within a building, instead of trying to heat the entire space.

The result is that each person is comfortably warm while the empty space around them is cooler, thus reducing energy consumption.

Local Warming has been developed by researchers at MIT's Senseable City Lab and is being presented for the first time as an installation at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens today (4 June, 2014).

Carlo Ratti, who led the research said that "a huge amount of energy" is wasted on heating partially occupied buildings. "Buildings are heated 24 hours a day, even when nobody is in them, and empty corners of the building are indiscriminately kept just as warm as rooms that are in active use. The technologies underlying Local Warming could address this asymmetry by synchronising climate control with human presence, vastly improving the energy efficiency of buildings."

The system works by recognising when a visitor enters a room, and then tracking his or her location and trajectory in real-time using an MIT-developed technology. This information is then transmitted in real time to a load of dynamic heating elements -- with servo motors to change direction, a bulb to generate infrared radiation, a cold mirror and focussing optics -- which are placed in a grid on the ceiling. The heat is then emitted to create spotlights of warmth in a space so that people feel like they are in a "personal thermal cloud", as project engineer Leigh Christie describes it.

The team suspects that the first commercial application of the technology might be responsive outdoor heaters or large lobbies -- spaces that are often sparsely occupied. Further down the line, the technology could be used to allow individuals to specify their chosen temperature for their thermal bubble via a smartphone app -- I might want a slightly warmer temperature than my colleague, for example.

Ratti told Wired.co.uk that the biggest challenge has been integrating the motion tracking with the actuation of the infrared light. "We are still overcoming [this challenge]," he says, adding that it will be "easy when this is into production".

The system is only being presented as a prototype, but Ratti doesn't believe that such a system would be too expensive to implement. "We have imagined very simple systems that could be integrated into a standard false ceiling," he says.

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Local Warming system creates 'thermal cloud' for individuals