ENERGY EFFICIENT SMART CLASSROOMS WITH WI-FI CONTROL

Abstract

– Our country, Pakistan, is facing an energy crisis and poor economy. The need of the time is to develop a solution which promotes a better lifestyle and less burden on the economy. This paper represents the design and implementation of an automated classroom that not only uses smart algorithms but based on the ECOs (Energy Conversion Opportunities) of an energy audit it reduces the energy consumption without affecting the performance of system and then make a priority list of these opportunities to optimize the energy consumption . A prototype comprising of a smart central unit which monitors occupants, their location and their preference trends using Passive Infrared motion sensors and automated switching that control lighting and heating, and an Android application that monitors and controls the smart system has been implemented. The prototype has been tested in two identical environments; one classroom was treated as an experimental group and the other as the control group. The results show that the ‗smart‘ classroom with integrated algorithms and control architecture smartly distributes the available energy and keeps the classroom in optimal conditions. It proves to be significantly effective in saving energy. Thus it has been concluded that with this approach we can save energy and money that was previously wasted and efficiently consume energy considering our country‘s limited energy resources.