The project is an air conditioner monitoring system which is in collaboration between Daikin Malaysia and Taylor’s University with the main objective to expose Electrical and Electronic students to IoT by developing a condition monitoring system for an air conditioner system. The project is designed to give a real-time update to the user or manufacturer with the sensors which are installed into the air conditioner system. The following parameters are measured as addressed to the common defects and to monitor the energy usage:
- Refrigerant pressure
- Piping vibration
- Differential air pressure across air filter
- Energy consumption
Data collected by the sensors is sent to an Internet of Things (IoT) platform Favoriotthrough an Arduino with Wi-Fi connection. The analytical process will be carried out and whenever one or more of the parameter passed through the threshold, an immediate response will be sent, such as switched off the air conditioner, as well as informing the user or manufacturer.
All the sensors are then connected to an Arduino UNO that is equipped with a Wi-Fi module for the internet connectivity. The figure below shows an Arduino with Wi-Fi module connected.
After the data is collected, it will be sent to an IoT platform via the internet. Favoriot, a company that specializes in IoT technology, has provided students a full-functional IoT platform for their project.
[Note: Taylor’s University is one of the 17 Malaysian Universities that utilizes Favoriot as their IoT platform for their Final Year students projects]