Bright Ideas for Home Energy

Electronics Industry Search

Already a member? Log In
New to the site? Register

TALK BACK

Comments

There are no comments posted for this article.

Blogs



The Bad Driver List from I Have The Power! There are more idiots on the roads these days than good drivers. When you find yourself in a near fender-bender with a wannabe Mad Max, what recour...

COMMUNITY CHANNELS

Motion Control/Automation

Electronics/Test

Software/Hardware

Materials/Fastening

Automotive

Careers

Print Friendly Version |

Email This to a Friend |

| Article tools sponsored by

Digg This | Slashdot This | add to Del.icio.us

Terry Costlow, Contributing Editor -- Design News, January 7, 2008

View more articles by this author

Technology Marketplace

Energy conservation is a hot topic on the nation's campuses. Competitions like the Dept. of Energy's Solar Decathlon are fostering ideas for reducing power consumption in homes. Georgia Tech's entry employed five solar-powered systems that managed lighting, HVAC, energy, plumbing and motion control systems. About 80 channels of analog and voltage data was measured and controlled by National Instruments' Compact Fieldpoint hardware. The plumbing control system used thermocouple and analog voltage input cards, while the energy control system used a Compact Fieldpoint system with analog conditioning. The user interfaces for each of the five systems, programmed in National Instruments' LabVIEW, ran on standard PCs.