An occupant behavior modeling tool for co-simulation

Traditionally, in building energy modeling (BEM) programs, occupant behavior (OB) inputs are deter-ministic and less indicative of real world scenarios, contributing to discrepancies between simulated andactual energy use in buildings. This paper presents a new OB modeling tool, with an occupant behaviorfunctional mock-up unit (obFMU) that enables co-simulation with BEM programs implementing func-tional mock-up interface (FMI). The components detailed in the development of the obFMU include anoverview of the DNAS (drivers-needs-actions-systems) ontology and the occupant behavior eXtensibleMarkup Language (obXML) schema, in addition to details on the creation of the obFMU that containsthe co-simulation interface, the data model and solvers. To demonstrate functionality of the tool, threeexamples of occupant behaviors were simulated, including: (1) turning on and off lights, (2) opening andclosing windows, and (3) turning on and off the air conditioners. The obFMU can be used via co-simulationwith all building simulation programs that implement the FMI, thus users are not limited to a particulartool. Another advantage is the use of obXML schema to represent occupant behavior, standardize thedescription of occupant behavior enabling information exchange.