GenTL: A General Transfer Learning Model for Building Thermal Dynamics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Raisch, Fabian, Krug, Thomas, Goebel, Christoph, Tischler, Benjamin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Raisch, Fabian
Krug, Thomas
Goebel, Christoph
Tischler, Benjamin
author_facet Raisch, Fabian
Krug, Thomas
Goebel, Christoph
Tischler, Benjamin
contents Transfer Learning (TL) is an emerging field in modeling building thermal dynamics. This method reduces the data required for a data-driven model of a target building by leveraging knowledge from a source building. Consequently, it enables the creation of data-efficient models that can be used for advanced control and fault detection & diagnosis. A major limitation of the TL approach is its inconsistent performance across different sources. Although accurate source-building selection for a target is crucial, it remains a persistent challenge. We present GenTL, a general transfer learning model for single-family houses in Central Europe. GenTL can be efficiently fine-tuned to a large variety of target buildings. It is pretrained on a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network with data from 450 different buildings. The general transfer learning model eliminates the need for source-building selection by serving as a universal source for fine-tuning. Comparative analysis with conventional single-source to single-target TL demonstrates the efficacy and reliability of the general pretraining approach. Testing GenTL on 144 target buildings for fine-tuning reveals an average prediction error (RMSE) reduction of 42.1 % compared to fine-tuning single-source models.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_13703
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle GenTL: A General Transfer Learning Model for Building Thermal Dynamics
Raisch, Fabian
Krug, Thomas
Goebel, Christoph
Tischler, Benjamin
Systems and Control
Machine Learning
Transfer Learning (TL) is an emerging field in modeling building thermal dynamics. This method reduces the data required for a data-driven model of a target building by leveraging knowledge from a source building. Consequently, it enables the creation of data-efficient models that can be used for advanced control and fault detection & diagnosis. A major limitation of the TL approach is its inconsistent performance across different sources. Although accurate source-building selection for a target is crucial, it remains a persistent challenge. We present GenTL, a general transfer learning model for single-family houses in Central Europe. GenTL can be efficiently fine-tuned to a large variety of target buildings. It is pretrained on a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network with data from 450 different buildings. The general transfer learning model eliminates the need for source-building selection by serving as a universal source for fine-tuning. Comparative analysis with conventional single-source to single-target TL demonstrates the efficacy and reliability of the general pretraining approach. Testing GenTL on 144 target buildings for fine-tuning reveals an average prediction error (RMSE) reduction of 42.1 % compared to fine-tuning single-source models.
title GenTL: A General Transfer Learning Model for Building Thermal Dynamics
topic Systems and Control
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.13703