Smart classroom

Group Name: Skynet

Group Members:

Name	Student number
Hannes Hietanen	0403053
Severi Ahopelto	0454293
Md Anisul Islam	0528721

Problem

LUT has multiple computer rooms available in 24/7 use. These classrooms have their computers on hibernation all the time they are not in use, which uses power needlessly.

This issue could be solved using smart solutions.

Vision

A classroom with no power usage when not in use

The room should still be immediately usable after someone has entered in

Power usage should fall down to zero when the last person leaves the room

Implemented scenario

Calculating power consumed by all idle electronic devices and Recognizing the motion → Turning ON/OFF power supply

Situational lighting based on Power consumption

Energy savings calculations

A simple calculation example would be to estimate energy saving in one computer classroom since they have the most electronic devices in classrooms.

We’ll be using an LUT computer classroom in this example. In an LUT computer classroom there are around 15 computers and monitors.

We can take standby power calculations researched by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and use them in our calculations. According to their research an LCD display consumes 1.38W of power in sleep mode and a desktop computer consumes 21.13W on average in sleep mode.

In these estimations the hardest part is estimating what portion of the year are the computer classes not in use. We can roughly say it is at least half of the day since the rooms are not used at most nights and daytime use is small on holidays and summer.

We can also calculate cost savings estimates using electricity prices in Finland.

With these numbers we can calculate some estimates.

Benefits and savings

Most people don’t think about turning school computers off and nobody unplugs their classroom electronics after leaving. Our solution provides convenience and ease of mind since those who do use school electronics responsibly won’t need to worry about shutting down devices either. Everything happens unnoticed automatically. That small convenience is the social sustainability our concept brings. Most of our projects sustainability is on environmental side. The whole idea of this concept is to save the last bit of completely wasteful power usage in classrooms. Although the impact of one room is small the combined impact of hundreds of classrooms saves a lot of energy thus reducing the emissions caused by electricity usage.

We can see from the calculations that the amount of money saved is quite small in the scale of a university but when we include all the classrooms into consideration the energy savings and cost benefits can become significant. The real issue is the cost of implementation which in our example using switches would require multiple switches in each classroom and wouldn’t be worth the investment. Our solution could be developed further and if we could manage a complete classroom with one switch the investment could be worth it. It is of course also a way of branding and enhancing the university’s image. Green campus image sells, and this solution would bring another dimension to that.

Extended vision

Smart Windows

Automatic dimming of windows

Generating some power from sunlight

Smart Walls

Accurately detecting people inside the room

Using any wall as an interactive surface with a projector

No need for wall switches, interactions done touching the wall

Smart Heating

Heating times based on classroom use

System is aware of the school schedule

Home Automation Protocol - X10

X10 was developed in 1975 in Scotland

Uses power lines to transmit data

Has been an international standard for home automation for a long time

Communicates between transmitters and receivers

RF bursts over power line

A 1ms burst of 120 kHz is Binary 1 and absence of 120 kHz is Binary 0

Complete code transmission is 11 cycles

Bits are sent in half cycles of the power line (1ms signal on one half cycle)

First 2 cycles are a default Start code 1110, which is always the same

Next 4 cycles indicate the house code

Last 5 cycles represent a Number Code or a Function Code

image: www.x10.com/x10-basics.html

Benefits

Uses existing wiring (no need for ethernet or wireless networks)

Simple to use

Been around for a long time so there are many compatible devices

Cheaper than most alternatives

Drawbacks

Noticeable delay

Possible interference (data byte gaps etc.)

Provides less functionality than alternatives

16 home addresses and 16 unit codes per address so only 256 different addresses

FHEM

Open source Perl server for home automation

Common tasks include switching devices and logging events

Supports many protocols and devices

Our impressions

Flexible and extensible

Built-in regular expressions are useful

Can be controlled with many devices, such as smartphones

Very limited English documentation and support

Poster

Documents

Presentation:smart_classroom_final.pptx

Final report:

Code: code.zip

Poster: homeautomation2018:group6:automation_poster_small.png