Personalized Building Climate Control with Contextual Preferential Bayesian Optimization

Abstract

Efficient tuning of building climate controllers to optimize occupant utility is essential for ensuring overall comfort and satisfaction. However, this is a challenging task since the latent utility are difficult to measure directly. Time-varying contextual factors, such as outdoor temperature, further complicate the problem. To address these challenges, we propose a contextual preferential Bayesian optimization algorithm that leverages binary preference feedback together with contextual information to enable efficient real-time controller tuning. We validate the approach by tuning an economic MPC controller on BOPTEST, a high-fidelity building simulation platform. Over a two-month simulation period, our method outperforms the baseline controller and achieves an improvement of up to 23% in utility. Moreover, for different occupant types, we demonstrate that the algorithm automatically adapts to individual preferences, enabling personalized controller tuning.