Simulation-Based Research on Occupant-Centric Automatic Control of Solar Shading Devices: A Review of Tools and Control Strategies

Literature reviews indicate that automatic control of solar shading devices improves indoor environmental quality and energy efficiency compared to manual control. However, users’ preferences may conflict with the conditions set by the automatic control strategy. Therefore, designing control strategies compatible with users’ preferences plays a critical role in improving the effectiveness of automatic control systems. In these strategies, different comfort metrics and control methods are used, and to construct or evaluate strategies, various simulation tools are utilised. A systematic review has been done conducted, using 43 articles selected from the Scopus database, to examine the simulation tools and methods used and the characteristics preferred in the control strategies introduced in these publications. Analysis of these studies showed that traditional shading components were predominantly used. It has been found that the number of strategies controlling other systems together with shading components in an integrated manner is few. Regarding the feedback preferences in these strategies, it has been observed that the developed control strategies generally have a balanced structure between open-loop and closed-loop systems. Furthermore, it was seen that the number of studies on self-updating systems based on user feedback was insufficient and generally focused on the mere presence of the user.