Measurement of thermal comfort in the indoor environment enables making adjustments to building design and operations to improve building performance. Methods of measurement tend to be tedious and expensive, requiring several expensive sensors to be mounted in the building. In this paper, we propose the Autonomous Robotic Environmental Sensor (ARES), a custom-designed omniwheel mobile robot retrofitted with several sensors capable of autonomously taking measurements of the indoor environment at multiple positions, reducing the number of sensors, amount of labor required, and cost. A Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) is designed and applied to the robotic platform, and positional accuracy is verified, allowing for highly accurate movement to ensure environmental measurements occur at known positions. Wind velocity, air temperature, and relative humidity data collected by the ARES platform in a laboratory environment for 24 hours is analyzed, providing insight into the thermo-fluid variables in the room and the room’s predicted thermal comfort.

测量室内环境中的热舒适度有助于对建筑设计和运营进行调整，以提高建筑性能。测量方法往往既乏味又昂贵，需要在建筑物中安装几个昂贵的传感器。在本文中，我们提出了自主机器人环境传感器 (ARES)，这是一种定制设计的全轮移动机器人，改装了多个传感器，能够在多个位置自主测量室内环境，减少传感器数量、所需劳动力、和成本。滑模控制器 (SMC) 被设计并应用于机器人平台，并验证位置精度，允许高度精确的运动，以确保在已知位置进行环境测量。风速、气温、