Temperature monitoring sensor for energy efficient buildings

Abstract

With the increase in environmental awareness, using energy effectively and efficiently becomes very important. As air-conditioning and heating systems consumed most of the energy used in a building, it is important to ensure that these systems are energy efficient. Therefore this project aims to create a temperature monitoring system to increase efficiency of energy usage. Firstly, the temperature monitoring system was created using NI-6008 DAQ as the interface between temperature sensors and LabVIEW. LabVIEW is used as a platform process, display and stored the collected data. Next, the system is improved to monitor temperature remotely through wireless link by using XBee modules and Arduino Uno Board. XBee modules are used to sample periodically without the need of additional micro-controller. In addition, LabVIEW is used to inform user when temperature is out of thermal comfort range. Overall, with the monitoring system, temperature data collected can be used to ensure that the indoor temperature is at a thermal comfort range so that unnecessary energy will not be wasted.