Smart Place 3.0: gerenciamento automático de ar condicionados em ambientes complexos

Abstract

The bad management of electric devices is a reality in the world that has generated a significant waste of electricity. Bound to this waste, it is possible to witness a rise in the electricity bills of houses, schools, commercial buildings, etc. In Brazil, this rise was caused by factors such as the high demand for air conditioning devices, due to the high temperatures registered in recent years and the lack of concern with consumption reduction measures. This matters has motivated countless work, that mostly propose a automation system for electric devices, specially air conditioners. Aiming to optimize the usage of electrical equipments e generalize the solution towards different environments, this work presents Smart Place 3.0, a management and automatized control system of air conditioning devices for complex environments. In this system, sensors and cameras generate data referring to the temperature and presence in the controlled environments, in a way that the data work as parameter for the decision manking for the air conditioners. The objective is to avoid for the air conditioners to remain working when the environment is in structurally complex rooms, by choosing the ones that should be on and even until when they should remain on. The system uses a hardware kit based on the masterslave architecture and has an algorithm that controls de devices automatically and a web application to visualize the sensors and devices’ status. This work describes Smart Place 3.0, its evolution and operation in a room at Instituto Metrópole Digital (IMD/UFRN) that has a different structure than the traditional rooms. The results showed that the system contributed to the economy of electricity.