IoT Based Indoor Air Quality and Smart Energy Mana 2

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Procedia Computer Science 00 (2019) 000–000
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Third International Conference on Computing and Network Communications (CoCoNet’19)
ThirdIoT Based Conference

International Indoor Air Quality and
on Computing andNetwork
SmartCommunications
Energy Management
(CoCoNet’19)
for HVAC System
IoT Based Indoor Aira,Quality
S.Dhanalakshmi M.Poongothai andbSmart Energy
, Kaner Sharma a,b,*
Management
forCoimbatore
Assistant Professor, Department of ECE,
a HVAC System
Institute of Technology, Coimbatore-641014, India
Associate Professor, Department of ECE, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore-641014, India
b
S.Dhanalakshmia, M.Poongothaib, Kaner Sharmaa,b,*

Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore-641014, India
a
Associate Professor, Department of ECE, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore-641014, India

b
Abstract
Heating ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems consume a substantial volume of energy within corporate buildings,
mainly due to lack of severe monitoring which results in compromising either energy efficiency or user comfort. We propose a
simple
AbstractHVAC control system that automates the HVAC operation in real time by considering energy management policies and
user preferences. Our system is built on top of IoT (Internet of Things) framework, where appliances in a laboratory are
automated
Heating with suitable
ventilation sensors
and Air also thermal
Conditioning parameters
(HVAC) areconsume
systems obtainedafrom sensorsvolume
substantial and userof feedback information
energy within arebuildings,
corporate collected
for real-time
mainly due toprocessing in our
lack of severe distributed
monitoring cloudresults
which environment. We utilized
in compromising Blynk
either Application
energy efficiencyProgramming Interface
or user comfort. (API) toa
We propose
monitor the real time data from sensors, to obtain user feedback periodically and to dynamically adjust
simple HVAC control system that automates the HVAC operation in real time by considering energy management policies the temperature settings
and
based on energy management
user preferences. Our systempolicies,
is built user feedback
on top and(Internet
of IoT sensor values. The effectiveness
of Things) framework, of HVAC
where is evaluated
appliances in amathematically.
laboratory are
Our experiments
automated indicatesensors
with suitable that wealso
achieve totalparameters
thermal saving of 0.9
arekWhr and also
obtained frommaintain user user
sensors and thermal comfort
feedback consistently.
information are collected
for real-time processing in our distributed cloud environment. We utilized Blynk Application Programming Interface (API) to
monitor the real time data from sensors, to obtain user feedback periodically and to dynamically adjust the temperature settings
© 2020onThe
based Authors.
energy Published
management by Elsevier
policies, B.V.
user feedback and sensor values. The effectiveness of HVAC is evaluated mathematically.
Thisexperiments
Our is an open access article
indicate thatunder the CCtotal
we achieve BY-NC-ND
saving of license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
0.9 kWhr and also maintain user thermal comfort consistently.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Third International Conference on Computing and Network
© 2020 The Authors.
Communications Published by Elsevier B.V.
(CoCoNet’19)
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access
Communications article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
(CoCoNet’19).
Keywords: Heating(CoCoNet’19)
Communications Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems, Internet of Things, Blynk API
Keywords: Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems, Internet of Things, Blynk API
a
Corresponding author. Tel.: 9952542029.
E-mail address: [email protected]
1877-0509 © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Third International Conference on Computing and Network Communications
a
Corresponding author. Tel.: 9952542029.
(CoCoNet’19)
E-mail address: [email protected]
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Third International Conference on Computing and Network Communications
(CoCoNet’19)

Communications (CoCoNet’19).
10.1016/j.procs.2020.04.193
S. Dhanalakshmi et al. / Procedia Computer Science 171 (2020) 1800–1809 1801
2 S. Dhanalakshmi, M. Poongothai, Kaner Sharma/ Procedia Computer Science 00 (2019) 000–000
1. Introduction
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a term describing the air quality of a room, especially it refers to the health and
comfort of the occupants. It refers to the nature of the conditioned air that circulates throughout space/area, where
we work and live in. IAQ can be affected by microbial contaminants (mold, fungus) which largely depend on
temperature and humidity condition of a room, gaseous pollutants (including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide,
volatile organic compounds etc) and dust particles or aerosols. These pollutants can induce adverse health effects to
the occupants [1].
Human beings exhale carbon-di-oxide and thus CO2 concentration increases as number of people increases.
Cognitive function decreases by an average of 21 percent with a 400-ppm increase in carbon di oxide. Moderate to
high levels of carbon dioxide can cause headaches and fatigue, and higher concentrations can produce nausea,
dizziness, and vomiting. Loss of consciousness can occur at extremely high concentrations. Hence, it is important to
focus on indoor air quality in order to prevent or reduce high concentrations of carbon dioxide in a building or room.
By monitoring all these parameters like CO2 and temperature we can control the HVAC system of the workspace to
obtain proper environment for the work and save energy with the help of energy management policy [2].
The aim of this project is to save energy and control the HVAC system with the help of different sensors
and IoT [6]. In past recent years, the demand of power is increasing due to increase in population and growth of
industrialization to full fill the need, government is implementing new power station and lots of scientists are finding
another way to generate electricity as because most of the power generating stations are not much efficient also most
of them are using fossil fuels. In daily life, we waste most of the electricity by not turning ‘OFF’ the appliances
when not in use and this energy got wasted [4]. To overcome this problem, on top of IoT framework we built an
automation system that takes care of energy conservation, user comfort and air quality with the help of various
sensors and API [3].
2. Related works
Many studies on smart HVAC systems have been showed for energy saving and user convenience. In
particular, the indoor air quality (IAQ) management solution is a very important technology for increasing user
comfort and conserve power.
Karami et al examined Temperature, CO2, VOC (CO, CH4, alcohols, ketones, organic, acids, amines,
aliphatic hydrocarbons and aromatic hydrocarbons and PM2.5 in the environment and analyzed using Voltron
software [1]. They evaluated thermal comfort using two parameters namely Predicted Mean Value (PMV) &
Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied (PPD). They experimented that PMV and PPD indexes are well below threshold
limit leads to user dissatisfaction and energy consumption. Their results revealed that Particle concentration, CO2
and VOC are in acceptable limit. The proposed work enhances good extensibility and due to robustness of toolbox
for long term applications no missing data was notified.
Choi et al examined Temperature, Humidity, CO, CO2, Dust, PM, VOC and Methane in air [2]. The
proposed work comprises of IoT based HVAC system which contains HVAC system and middleware. The HVAC
system comprises of Ventilation system & AC system and the middleware comprises of IoT based HVACD, IoT
managing gateway and Intelligent control manager. The Power consumption is reduced by a factor of 13.7%
compared with the existing system. It is worth noting that the HVAC system is focused on the perspective of IoT
paradigm and the user-oriented preferences. The proposed system can collect indoor and outdoor atmospheric
environment data and user comfort was achieved along with good power reduction.
Rajith et al examined various gases and temperature in an indoor environment [3]. The proposed work uses
Node-red for data transfer from microcontroller to NoSQL database. Grafana tool was used for data visualization
and in this work, they used ANN-MLP to forecast temperature value for next time series. MILP is used as an
optimizer algorithm which intakes user preferences and forecasted temperature values to control HVAC units. The
proposed work achieves 20 to 40% reduction in energy consumption without compromising user satisfaction. CO2 is
also analyzed and ventilation system is turned on when it crosses 1000ppm. Peak pricing hours were considered.
1802 S. Dhanalakshmi et al. / Procedia Computer Science 171 (2020) 1800–1809
S. Dhanalakshmi, M. Poongothai, Kaner Sharma/ Procedia Computer Science 00 (2019) 000–000 3
The proposed work integrates both laboratory automation based on occupancy and real time monitoring
and controlling of indoor air quality and temperature to improve user comfort and health along with the conservation
of energy is the key highlight of this HVAC system compared to various other related works.
The paper is subdivided into three parts a) Automation of all electrical appliances in a particular hall b)
Controlling air conditioner/ventilation system based on temperature and air quality in a particular hall and c) Using
current sensors measuring the power consumption and comparing the results with and without installing air quality
kit.
3. Architecture Overview
Figure 1 shows the overall architecture of the HVAC system. This block diagram indicates both
occupancy-based light & fan automation system and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) monitoring and controlling system by
automizing ventilation and Air conditioning system. In this work dust sensor GP2Y1010AU0F to measure PM2.5
[1], LM35 temperature sensor and MHZ14-A sensor to measure carbon-di-oxide are integrated and it is utilized for
specific purposes.
Fig 1. Block diagram of HVAC system
According to American society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
standards 1000 ppm was recommended as upper limit for the indoor CO2 level [1]. So, it is necessary to monitor the
CO2 concentration inside room for user comfort and to resolve health issues due to poor quality of air [5]. In this
work, MHZ14-A CO2 sensor is used which works on non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) principle to detect the
existence of CO2 in the air. To maintain temperature and to enhance user comfort LM35 is installed to sense room
temperature. IR sensors are used to detect motions and heat from objects to automate electrical appliances inside hall
and Current sensors are used to measure power consumption by each and every appliance. The sensed values from
integrated sensors are uploaded to google firebase using ESP32 microcontroller which has an inbuilt wi-fi module.
Some of the sensed data can be visualized using Blynk application programming interface and some outputs can be
directly used to automate lights and fans.
Blynk API also paves provision for the user to input their preferred temperature level. Apart from this, an
intelligent control manager compiles the energy management policy which will be described in detail in section 3.2.
An optimizer is the one which optimizes the real time sensor outputs, user preferences and energy management
policies and automates HVAC units using software intermediaries [3].
3.1. Automation of electrical appliances
ELECTRICAL
RELAY APPLIANCES
ESP32 CURRENT
MICROCONTROL SENSORS + IR
LER SENSORS
Fig.2. Block diagram of automation system
Fig 2 shows the block diagram of automation system. IR sensors are capable of measuring the heat being
emitted by an object and detecting motion. Ultrasonic sensors transmit a short burst of ultrasonic sound to a
target, which reflects the sound back to the sensor. In this work, IR sensors are used to trigger fans and lights
inside the hall and ultrasonic sensors HC-SR04 are used to count the entries of a particular hall to disable
unnecessary appliances. The main advantage of this work is that occupancy-based lightning system is
incorporated to manage/avoid power wastage. Apart from this, current sensor is also added to measure power
consumed by each appliance to calculate the inimitability of the system.
3.2. Controlling Air conditioner/Ventilation System based on temperature and air quality
Fig 3. Block diagram of indoor air quality system
Fig 3 shows the block diagram of indoor air quality system which builds on the top of an IoT framework.
This section deals with Indoor air quality system which automates air conditioner/ventilation system based on the
CO2 concentration and temperature value inside a hall. The outputs from various sensors are optimized using an
optimizer along with the user feedback which is obtained via Blynk API and energy management policies which is
written in embedded C language. Based on the output of the optimizer HVAC units are controlled by software
intermediaries [8].
Energy Management Policies are framed based on the assumption that during certain time of a day, peak
pricing is incorporated [3]. The following is the energy management policy used in this work.
1804 S. Dhanalakshmi,
S. M. Poongothai, et
Dhanalakshmi Kaner Sharma/ Procedia
al. / Procedia ComputerComputer Science
Science 171 001800–1809
(2020) (2019) 000–000 5
At time τ, thermal comfort of the normal office space can be calculated using the following equation.
In equation (4) ph is made to 0 during normal hours and 1 during peak hours.
is the deviation in the comfort threshold
During HVAC cooling operation, the user comfort is slightly compromised and thus energy saving is
prioritized over user comfort during peak hours. Therefore, the constraint given in equation (2) is modified into
equation (4).
3.3. Using current sensors to measure the current consumption
As a comparative study of installing indoor air quality system and laboratory automation system, current
sensors are added to each and every appliance to measure power consumption and detailed analysis was carried out
with and without installing both the systems. The results revealed that with air quality and automation systems
consumes lesser power. In this work, it is assumed that an office works for 5 hours duration and employee takes
break in between which improves his concentration and to get a feel of being relaxed. It is assumed that he took a
break of 1½ hour and thus he totally works for 3½ hour duration. Our proposed system uses occupancy-based lab
automation system and thus appliances will be turned off whenever an employee leaves out for break and thus the
effective time with automation is chosen as 3.5 hrs and without automation is chosen as 5 hrs. The difference
between the power consumption in both the case is said to be the total saving. Finally, the saving for the entire year
was also calculated assuming a year has 365 days. The cost of one unit is considered to calculate the total cost
saving throughout the year after installing automation system inside the lab. The below is the mathematical model
for the same.
If suppose, Load is 600W.
Time Duration for calculating energy is 5hr.

E(kW / hr ) = E(W ) * T (hr ) / 1000(W / kW )
E (kW/hr) = Energy Consumed (kWhr)
E (W) = Energy of load (Watt)
T (hr) = Duration of load in ON state
Then Energy Consumed without automation.

E = 600*5/1000
= 3 (kWhr)
When Automatic System is ON teff=3.5 hr then,
E =600*3.5/1000
=2.1 (kWhr)
Total saving =3 (kWhr) – 2.1 (kWhr)
=0.9 (kWhr)
If this pattern is for all day then total energy saving throughout the year=0.9*365
=328.5 (kWhr)
As we know 1 Unit = 1kWhr
Therefore, total energy saved is 328.5 Units.
Assuming cost of 1 Unit is 12Rs.
Therefore, total cost saving through the year is = Rs. 328.5*12 = Rs. 3,942
4. Results and discussions
This section deals with results obtained in this work. Since, this work has both hardware and software parts,
the images of the outputs are described below.
a b
Fig. 4. (a) Sensor board; (b) Controller Board
Fig 4 (a) shows the sensor board set up with IR sensor, Ultrasonic sensor, MHZ14-A carbon-di-oxide
sensor and LM35 temperature sensor. Fig 4 (b) shows the controller board set up with ESP32 microcontroller, relay
module and electrical appliances.
a b
Fig. 5. (a) Blynk View of no presence; (b) When No presence is detected
Fig 5 (a) shows the blynk view when there is no presence. When human movement is not detected relay
connected to the electrical appliances is not turned on as shown in Fig 5 (b).
a b
Fig. 6. (a) Blynk view of presence; (b) When presence is detected
Fig 6 (a) and (b) shows the blynk view and hardware set up when human presence is detected. Relay gets
turned on as shown in Fig. 6 (b) and hence the corresponding light/fan connected to the relay gets triggered ON.
a b
Fig. 7. (a) Blynk view of temperature below the user preference; (b) When temperature is below user value
Fig 7 (a) shows that the sensed temperature level is 29oC, since the user preferred temperature is 31oC
which is slightly higher than the sensed room temperature there is no necessity to switch on the AC. Fig 7 (b) shows
the hardware setup in which the LED1 is in off state due to the room temperature is below the user preferred
temperature.
a b
Fig. 8. (a) Blynk view of temperature above the user preference; (b) When temperature is above user value
Fig 8 (a) shows that the sensed temperature level is 37oC, since the user preferred temperature is 31oC
which is lower than the sensed room temperature, it is necessary to switch on the AC. Fig 8 (b) shows the hardware
setup in which the LED1 is in on state due to the room temperature is above the user preferred temperature.
a b
Fig. 9. (a) Blynk view of CO2 concentration below ASHRAE standards; (b) When CO2 concentration is below ASHRAE standard
Fig 9 (a) shows that the CO2 concentration level is 400 ppm, since the ASHRAE standard is 429
ppm which is slightly higher than the sensed room temperature there is no necessity to switch on the ventilation
system. Fig 9 (b) shows the hardware setup in which the LED2 is in off state due to the observed CO2 concentration
is well below the ASHRAE standards.
a b
Fig. 10. (a) Blynk view of CO2 concentration above ASHRAE standards; (b) When CO2 concentration is above ASHRAE standard
Fig 10 (a) shows that the CO2 concentration level is 800 ppm, since the ASHRAE standard is 447
ppm which is lower than the sensed value, it is necessary to switch on the ventilation system to improvise the user
health. Fig 9 (b) shows the hardware setup in which the LED2 is in on state due to the observed CO2 concentration
is above the ASHRAE standards. These figures also clearly show the count of persons entered into the hall using
ultrasonic sensor.
a b
Fig. 11. (a) Blynk view air quality data set; (b) Data set in excel sheet
Fig 11 (a) and (b) shows the data set used to evaluate the work. The data comprises of real time CO2
concentration, Dust density and temperature inside the lab.
5. Research Methodology
The primary consideration of this research, mainly focuses on conservation of energy during interval breaks in
office hours, occupancy-based lightning system and incorporating peak pricing hours. IR sensors will sense the
human movements and appliances will be triggered based on the occupancy status and appliances will be turned off
whenever an employee breaks from his work. Peak pricing hours will cut down unnecessary power consumption
during peak hours. The secondary consideration of this research, is to monitor and maintain indoor air quality and to
improve user comfort and health. This objective was accomplished by installing various sensors like CO2, dust and
temperature sensor inside the laboratory [7] to monitor the real time parameters. Temperature preferences are
obtained from the users of the laboratory using mobile app and CO2 standards given by ASHRAE [3] are considered
as the thresholds for temperature and CO2 concentration respectively. The sensor outputs are then compared with the
respective threshold values. If temperature value exceeds the threshold, then an air conditioning system will be
turned on to regularize the room temperature. If CO2 concentration exceeds the threshold, then ventilation system is
turned on to regularize the ambient atmosphere inside the laboratory.
6. Conclusion and Future work
In this paper, an automated real time HVAC system was built on top of an IoT framework based on user
feedback, demand response, building energy consumption and thermal comfort. We have implemented an automated
HVAC control system which decides HVAC set temperature and operation mode through user feedback and
temporal contexts. Real time visualization of thermal values and HVAC parameters are implemented. Energy
management policies were applied through the system structure considering the convenience of the user. Occupancy
based lab automation was implemented. Energy savings of 0.9 kWhr is achieved. As a future work, we intend to
incorporate machine learning algorithm to predict thermal and HVAC parameters based on historic time series data.
References
[1] Majid Karami, Gabrielle Viola McMorrow, Liping Wang. (2018) “Continuous monitoring of indoor environmental quality using an Arduino-
based data acquisition system” Journal of Building Engineering 19, Elsevier Publications, 2352-7102, pp.no: 412-419.
[2] Myeong-in-Choi, Keonhee Cho, Jun Yeon Hwang, Lee Won Park, Kyu Hee Jang, Sunghwan Park & Sehyun Park. (2017) “Design &
Implementation of IoT-Based HVAC system for future zero energy building”, The first International workshop on Smart Edge computing &
Networking.
[3] Anjali Rajith, Sakurai Soki, Mine Hiroshi. (2018) “Real-time Optimized HVAC Control System on top of an IoT Framework”, Third
International conference on Fog and Mobile Edge Computing, pp.no- 181-186.
[4] Smit Gupta, Caleb Petrie, Vittal Rao, Brian Nutter (2018) “Energy Efficient Control Methods of HVAC Systems for Smart Campus”, IEEE
Green Technologies Conference, 2166-5478, pp.no- 133-136.
[5] Sajjad Baghaee∗ , Ilkay Ulusoy. (2018) “User Comfort and Energy Efficiency in HVAC Systems by Q-learning”, 26th signal processing and
communications applications conference(SIU), doi:10.1109/siu.2018.8404287.
[6] Maksim Parshin, Alexander Ryzhov, Elena Gryazina (2019), “Experimental Study of Control Strategies for HVAC Systems”, 2019
International Youth Conference on Radio Electronics, Electrical and Power Engineering (REEPE), 18655442,
DOI: 10.1109/REEPE.2019.8708812.
[7] Andreas Sporr, Gerhard Zucker, (Senior Member, IEEE), René Hofmann (2019), “Automated HVAC Control Creation Based on Building
Information Modeling (BIM): Ventilation System”, IEEE Access, vol: 7, pp.no- 74747 – 74758.
[8] Liang Yu, Member, IEEE, Di Xie, Chongxin Huang, Tao Jiang, Senior Member, IEEE, Yulong Zou, Senior Member, IEEE (2018), “Energy
Optimization of HVAC Systems in Commercial Buildings Considering Indoor Air Quality Management”, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid,
pp.no- 1-11.

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ThirdIoT Based Conference

S.Dhanalakshmia, M.Poongothaib, Kaner Sharmaa,b,*

Associate Professor, Department of ECE, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore-641014, India

1877-0509 © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Fig 1. Block diagram of HVAC system

3.1. Automation of electrical appliances

Fig.2. Block diagram of automation system

Fig 3. Block diagram of indoor air quality system

is the deviation in the comfort threshold

3.3. Using current sensors to measure the current consumption

If suppose, Load is 600W.

Time Duration for calculating energy is 5hr.

Then Energy Consumed without automation.

4. Results and discussions

Fig. 4. (a) Sensor board; (b) Controller Board

Fig. 5. (a) Blynk View of no presence; (b) When No presence is detected

Fig. 6. (a) Blynk view of presence; (b) When presence is detected

6. Conclusion and Future work

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