Business & IT · Vol. XVI(1) · 2026
Adaptive distributed control systems for thermal regulation and structural health monitoring in built environments
Abstract
The operational energy performance of residential buildings consistently falls 15–50% below design projections, a discrepancy that neither improved simulation fidelity nor tighter envelope specifications have resolved across three decades of building science research. The root cause lies not in measurement error but in the structural incompatibility between the deterministic assumptions of conventional building energy models and the stochastic reality of occupant behavior, envelope aging, and equipment drift in service. This paper argues that adaptive distributed control architectures, comprising per-zone sensor-actuator nodes operating over mesh communication networks and guided by physics-informed predictive algorithms, address this incompatibility at its source, and that thermal regulation and structural health monitoring are functionally inseparable at the system design level rather than parallel independent fields. The argument is developed through analysis of three engineering systems documented in recent applied research and patent literature, alongside a synthesis of published work in model predictive control, reinforcement learning, and structural monitoring. Empirically observed outcomes include a 37.6% reduction in HVAC energy consumption relative to conventional thermostat control, a 76% improvement in power supply reliability under distributed micro-grid management, and envelope airtightness at 0.42 ACH50, below passive house certification thresholds. The convergence of these results across independent system implementations supports the proposition that behavioral model quality, rather than hardware specification alone, constitutes the binding constraint on built environment performance.
Keywords
adaptive control, distributed sensing, thermal regulation, structural health monitoring, mesh network, model predictive control, reinforcement learning, building performance gap, micro-grid, modular envelope
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How to cite (APA)
Baymatayeva Sholpan Muratkyzy (2026). Adaptive distributed control systems for thermal regulation and structural health monitoring in built environments. Business & IT, Vol. XVI(1), pp. 40–46. https://doi.org/10.14311/bit.2026.01.04