LB-17-001 -- Autonomous Robotic Building Energy Audits: Demonstrated Capabilities and Open Challenges ✓ Most Recent

Building operations are a significant consumer of energy and contributor to carbon emissions in the United States and around the globe. Energy audits offer significant potential in reducing building energy use by providing tailoredrecommendations involving equipment upgrades, operational adjustments, and building recommissioning. However, an energy audit is a time-intensive process that requires significant experience and training. This causes high costs related to performing an audit and prevents many businesses from having an audit completed. Automating the audit process not only will not only reduce the cost of audits but also provide clients with more repeatable and accurate recommendations based on improved data collection and analysis.

Previous work and the current state of the art of robotic auditing tools are discussed in this paper. Preliminary results from a lighting assessment prototype and an environmental baseline measurement prototype are presented. The paper closes with open challenges and future possibilities of autonomous vehicles for conducting audits.