Sensing Intra-clothing Climate to Increase Comfort According to time, place, and occasion

Abstract: Humans wear comfortable clothing depending on time, place, and occasion (TPO) to improve their quality of life. The wearing comfort of clothes varies with the microclimate formed between the skin and the clothes, referred to as the intra-clothing climate. Though comfort is related to the intra-clothing climate, comfort can be sacrificed to some extent, depending on the TPO.This study refers to unbearable discomfort as UD. Clothing giving UD differs depending on the TPO. In addition, the temperature and humidity inside the clothes affect the probability people feel UD. The study aims to find the relationship of the probability of UD with the temperature and humidity inside the clothes for each TPO to recommend clothes that prevent UD from occurring according to the TPO.The study assumes that the probability density of comfort at a specific TPO follows a two-dimensional Gaussian distribution of the temperature and humidity inside the clothes. It means not the temperature and humidity inside the clothes around the mean of the Gaussian distribution but those at the foot of the distribution are assumed to cause UD. The paper proposes a method to verify the assumption through a temperature and humidity sensor in the clothing. A temperature/humidity sensor in a small mesh case is attached between the clothes and the skin with a strap around the neck, to obtain temperature/humidity data. In addition, the comfort at each TPO is obtained by questionnaire in the range of "0 (uncomfortable)" to "4 (comfortable)". The distribution of comfort for the climate inside clothes from the sensor data is compared with questionnaire results.Experiments with 3 male subjects in their 20s during the 2-week experiment period have been conducted to observe the climate inside clothes in real life. The observed data are examined to extract the relationship with comfort for each TPO. The experiment has shown that the degree of comfort changes like a mountain on the two-dimensional plane of the temperature and humidity inside the clothing for a specific TPO of the subject. It also demonstrates that the degree of unbearable comfort increases at its foot. The data with the highest comfort level for each TPO of each subject are extracted to be applied for the GMM, to obtain a mixed normal distribution representing the area with the highest comfort level. The result accounts for the degree of unbearable comfort increasing at the tail of each Gaussian model. These results can be used for clothing recommendation considering comfort for each TPO based on the temperature and humidity sensed inside the clothing.

Keywords: intra-clothing climate, TPO, comfort, GMM, UD(Unbearble Discomfort)

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004014

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