Platforms - Research Centres IMT Nord Europe

MONICA (MONitoring Indoor Comfort and Air quality) multi-instrumented thermal manikin

MONICA, developed in close collaboration with the CAMBI laboratory at UTCB (Universitatea Tehnică de Construcții din București, Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest) is the first multi-instrumented thermal manikin capable of providing information on both thermal comfort and exposure to air pollutants.

MONICA’s size and weight are equivalent to a human being and the manikin is covered with a Kevlar thermal insulation membrane similar to skin, and interacts thermally with its environment. It is equipped with 79 heating segments, each featuring 5 temperature measurement and control sensors. It is therefore designed to simulate the thermal regulation mechanism of the human body, including anatomic distribution of temperatures. The thermal comfort perceived is then determined based on loss of heat to the environment. The associated control system accurately predicts the average temperature of each heating segment, by using a fault detection and isolation algorithm and a neuro-fuzzy controller (i.e., combining networks of artificial neurons and fuzzy logic). MONICA is also instrumented with five sensor systems each featuring around twelve metal oxide and electrochemical sensors, selected to be specific to a variety of pollutants typical of indoor environments (CO₂, O₃, NOx, VOC and particles).

The scientific questions that can be addressed in relation with the deployment of MONICA concern the local disruption of the distribution of pollutants in close vicinity to the human body by the thermal plume generated.

The purposes of its use concern the evaluation of thermal comfort in confined environments to guide ventilation and heating strategies also guaranteeing low exposure to air pollutants.