AC Power Monitor system Project

AC Power Monitor system tells the user about the costs of running an AC and the environmental impact of that AC

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Inspiration - Total AC costs in US amount to 29 billion $ per year. We need a system to monitor the AC costs and the environmental effect.

What it does - The Monitor system takes four inputs from the user called as AC tonnage, Room area in sq ft, Desired temperature, Ac star rating. It then accesses the current temperature from intellect and uses that to calculate various things such as CO2 emissions of AC in kgs, cost required to reach the desired temperature, how much time the ac will run to reach the desired temperature, cost of running the ac for 2400 hrs/year and gives the average temperature of the room

How we built it-Drivers were written for DHT22 in embedded C. The rest api is accessed for intellect and the temperature data is parsed in to a text file. The RACM is configured to send data using an RPMA node every 5 mins. The read interval is set to 1 minute and we thus average the temperature data to get the current temperature for further calculations. A python script accesses the text file and then calculates the various results as mentioned above. A GUI was created using wxpython which lets the user give the four inputs as discussed above.

Challenges we ran into - DHT22 is a single wire data line sensor. It has its own set of protocols for communication with rACM. We had to write our own drivers which included these protocols as part of K20 processor FW. Various calculations needed to be performed to calculate costs. Needed to read a lot of literature for that. Writing a GUI with wxpython was a challenge as we needed to learn it first.

Accomplishments that we're proud of - The AC power monitor system predicts a lot of things for the user which can help the user decide how to use an AC. The application is parametric and not hardcoded which allows the user to enter input values as per their wish. The system can be accessed anywhere as long as the node is in an RPMA AP coverage area.

What we learned - Gui development by wxpython. K20 processor is a powerful module with a lot of functionalities that can be harnessed. Intellect access. RPMA technology nuances

What's next for AC Power Monitor system Project - This system can also be mapped to a car in which we can calculate the approximate fuel consumed by a cars AC. Also the carbon footprint due to the AC of the car can be calculated.

Built With

  • dht22
  • embedded-c
  • intellect
  • python
  • racm
  • rpma
  • wxpython
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