Prediction of thermal sensation using low-cost infrared array sensors monitoring system

Using skin temperature to predict thermal comfort typically results in higher accuracy of thermal comfort prediction compared to other methods, however, such nonintrusive thermo-graphic cameras with high resolution/accuracy are more expensive compared to the thermistors with single point. Thus, a low-cost (and low resolution) thermal camera MLX90640 was studied in this study to predict individual thermal comfort, and compared with the prediction results from high accuracy thermocouple at single point of somewhere of localized body skin. Results show that the low-cost (low resolution) infrared camera (MLX90640) with accuracy of ± 2 °C and resolution of 32 × 24 pixels is able to be used to predict thermal sensation with a performance better than skin temperature measure system including thermocouples at different points of skin with an accuracy of ±0.15 °C. And the performance of infrared camera (MLX90640) is as good as the performance of environmental air temperature sensor with accuracy of ±0.10 °C. Thus, the usage of low-cost (and low resolution) thermal camera to predict individual thermal comfort worth to be further studied.