Augustus Design Team: Dooshaye Moonshiram, Diana Chiyangwa, Stephanie Lewellen
2007-2008: In collaboration with Augustus Design, this student team designed and verified a wireless system to monitor and report electrical energy usage by location and time without disrupting operations. The motivation for the project is to enable facilities to balance energy consumption with variable electricity prices, reduce operating costs, and determine where to improve equipment efficiency. Potential applications include manufacturing facilities and large urban residential facilities.
After reviewing available technology and the current competition, the team developed a conceptual design for the overall system, leveraging available technologies where possible. The team then focused at the sub-system level, purchasing and modifying various sensor and microcontroller components. The team wrote software to integrate the components and tested the prototype system on both residential and manufacturing applications. Throughout the project, the team also collaborated with a business student at BayPath College regarding market positioning of the system and future applications.
This project is part of Augustus Design’s initiatives in the energy production and energy efficiency market domain. The team’s final design, EnergyNet, served as a proof-of-concept for such an energy monitoring system.