Claims:
1. An energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions comprising of:

at least one ceiling Fan (100) integrated with a retrofit controller device (101);
at least one air conditioning appliance (102) using Infra-red communication protocol for its operation;
a plurality of sensors configured for measurement for environmental parameters;
a microcontroller unit including a programmed processor configured for real time processing of sensor parameters and corresponding control parameters of said ceiling fan (100) and air conditioning appliance (102);
a communication node including 433MHz RF communication (124) network for Control of Ceiling Fan (100), Infrared communication (123) network to control and deep setting of Air conditioner (102) and TCP/MQTT communication (125) network for user configuration and control;

wherein the retrofit controller device (101) work autonomously using the configuration parameters received from user app (104) and maintains and provides uniform cooling across the room by locally controlling the speed of Celling fan appliance (100) and deep setting parameters such as Set Temperature, Mode, Swing, Fan speed etc. by using Infrared communication; and
wherein the said microcontroller unit is configured to be controlled vide mobile application.

2. The energy efficient cooling system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the microcontroller unit assembly (110) includes the PCB with electronics components and module, Wi-Fi connectivity (112), Power Supply unit (115), Infrared LED arrays (111) being disposed at different locations around the said Assembly (110) so as to transmit the Infrared code at all directions.

3. The energy efficient cooling system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plurality of sensor include Temperature & Humidity sensor (116) configured to provide real time data of the temperature and humidity of the ambient air which is required to perform arithmetic calculations to set the real time Speed and Status for Ceiling Fan (100) using a local relay and fan speed control unit (113) and Mode, Set Temperature, Swing and Power for Air conditioner Unit (102,103) using IR LED Array (111).

4. The energy efficient cooling system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said microcontroller unit assembly (110) has a circular hole (114) configured to be housed around the Ceiling Fan rod inside the canopy.

5. The energy efficient cooling system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said microcontroller unit assembly (110) is configured to work autonomously using the configuration parameters received from user app (104) and maintains and provides uniform cooling across the room by locally controlling the speed of Celling fan appliance (100) and deep setting parameters such as Set Temperature, Mode, Swing, Fan speed etc. by using Infrared communication.

6. The energy efficient cooling system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said microcontroller unit assembly is adapted to generate a trigger if:
data generated by a particular sensor is outside a corresponding predetermined limit;
user has requested a change in the predetermined limit to which the recorded sensor data falls outside the limits; and
user has requested a force change in the status of output of a device.

7. The energy efficient cooling system as claimed in claim 6, wherein said microcontroller unit detects the change in real time or at a predetermined interval to create triggers.
8. The energy efficient cooling system as claimed in claim 6, wherein said microcontroller unit is configured to follow the deep sleep profile of the user by either following a predetermined one or by continuously recording the behavior of user and altering the same using machine learning.

9. A method for operating energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions comprising steps of:
receiving power on/off and control data from a mobile device on an antenna;
obtaining real time sensor data from the plurality of sensors and transmitting the same to microcontroller unit;
comparing vide the said microcontroller unit the said real time sensor data and the preset threshold data;
computing vide the said microcontroller unit and obtain instructions from said processor;
comparing instructions received from the said mobile device and equating for the required instruction from the said processor;
identifying, using the said processor, one of a plurality of appliances including ceiling fan and / or air conditioning device as an intended recipient of the instruction;
translating, by the processor, the instruction into a format readable to the one of the plurality of appliances; and
sending the translated instruction to the one of the plurality of appliances identified as the intended recipient of the instruction via one of one or more communication mechanisms of the microcontroller unit.

10. The method for operating energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions as claimed in claim 9, wherein the microcontroller unit assembly (110) includes the PCB with electronics components and module, Wi-Fi connectivity (112), Power Supply unit (115), Infrared LED arrays (111) being disposed at different locations around the said Assembly (110) so as to transmit the Infrared code at all directions.

11. The method for operating energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions as claimed in claim 9, wherein the plurality of sensor include Temperature & Humidity sensor (116) configured to provide real time data of the temperature and humidity of the ambient air which is required to perform arithmetic calculations to set the real time Speed and Status for Ceiling Fan (100) using a local relay and fan speed control unit (113) and Mode, Set Temperature, Swing and Power for Air conditioner Unit (102,103) using IR LED Array (111).

12. The method for operating energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions as claimed in claim 9, wherein said microcontroller unit assembly (110) is configured to work autonomously using the configuration parameters received from user app (104) and maintains and provides uniform cooling across the room by locally controlling the speed of Celling fan appliance (100) and deep setting parameters such as Set Temperature, Mode, Swing, Fan speed etc. by using Infrared communication.

13. The method for operating energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions as claimed in claim 9, wherein the said process is uniformly repeated after a fixed interval of time in a continuous loop.

14. The method for operating energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions as claimed in claim 9, wherein said microcontroller unit assembly is adapted to generate a trigger if:
data generated by a particular sensor is outside a corresponding predetermined limit;
user has requested a change in the predetermined limit to which the recorded sensor data falls outside the limits; and
user has requested a force change in the status of output of a device.

15 The method for operating energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions as claimed in claim 14, wherein said microcontroller unit detects the change in real time or at a predetermined interval to create triggers.

16. The method for operating energy efficient cooling system for ceiling fan and air conditioner based on environmental conditions as claimed in claim 14, wherein said microcontroller unit is configured to follow the deep sleep profile of the user by either following a predetermined one or by continuously recording the behavior of user and altering the same using machine learning.

, Description:

FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates to the energy efficient cooling solution for user with the help of heterogeneous cooling appliance by controlling of one or more environmental conditions, such as temperature and air flow, affecting a closed space and, more particularly, to control for regulating devices for controlling such environmental conditions based on sensed conditions or personal preference.

BACKGROUND ART
In most of the developing countries, Fan and Air conditioners are interchangeably used for efficient cooling in an effort to reduce the cost of operation. The control of Fan is manual by switching on and off the switch connected to it whereas AC is operated using Infrared remote controls, again manually. In a normal scenario, Air Conditioner continues to run at a specified speed and temperature set by remote and the fan too run at a set speed. To change the temperature and speed of these appliances requires a manual intervention by user

Moreover, during a typical sleep cycle, a typical user experiences a change in ambient temperature which can make the ambient too cold or too warm causing inconvenience or sleep disturbance to user. Also due to seasonal changes the user requires to have a different ambient temperature and mode of AC set. For e.g., in high humid environment dry mode is preferable over simple cooling mode. The Interoperable communication between Fan and Air conditioner is difficult due to various type and make of appliances and with the fact that the Infrared codes are different for different make and type of ACs.

There’s no existing solution that can control Fan and Cooling Appliances as per ambient environmental conditions.

In research, it is well established that the human body’s internal temperature shifts during a 24-hour period, which is known as circadian rhythm. The human body begins to shed warmth right about the time of the bed and continues to cool down until reaching its low point near daybreak, at around 5 am. The human body cools by expanding the blood vessels in the skin. When the ambient temperature at night starts to drop at night, we can notice that the hands and feet get warmer initially. This is since the body is letting the body heat escape through them to reduce the core temperature.

The ambience temperature during the sleep therefore must be maintained at optimum temperature, rather than subjected to too hot or too cold environment or it may affect the drop in the internal body temperature and cause disruption in sleep.

One of the research study [1] suggests that temperature of the room where user sleep is one of the most important factors in achieving quality sleep.

In another study [2], from 765K survey respondents, it was found that most people experience abnormal sleeping patterns during the hotter summer months when it may be more difficult to keep sleeping quarters at an optimal temperature. This may impact the body’s ability to cool itself at night. These researches conclude scientifically that a room temperature of around 18.3°C (65°F) is optimal for good night-time sleep.

Based on the various researches, the ambience temperature with respect to human body temperature for a good night sleep must have a direct proportion. As individual preferences may vary, the Set Point (SP) for the deep sleep quadrant can be made flexible with user input. As the sleep cycle, goes in 3 stages viz., Wind down, Deep sleep and Waking up, the ambience temperature should also be varied accordingly. For e.g., in the wind down period, the temperature must be lower than the set point to dissipate the heat released by human body in a cool environment and ease the user into sleep and during wake up the ambience temperature must be raised gradually to feel refresh after woke up.

A device for controlling environmental conditions, such as a ceiling fan, may incorporate a sensor to provide a measure of an ambient condition in order to regulate the operation of the device. In some past instances, including the sensor on such a device leads to skewing of the ambient conditions being sensed, such as due to heat resulting from the consumption of power, or the location (such as along a ceiling, in the case of a ceiling fan). It may also be desirable in some instances for the ambient conditions to be sensed at a location remote from the device, which an onboard sensor for sensing local conditions would be unable to do, and possibly at the device location as well. In some applications, it may also be desirable to provide a single fixed control, for coordinating multiple devices capable of controlling environmental conditions, rather than several manually operable controls for individual devices. Coordinated, automatic control of such devices based on a particular condition or desire of a user would also be beneficial.
Accordingly, a need is identified for a solution that may address any or all of the foregoing limitations, along with others that have yet to be discovered.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION
According to one aspect of the disclosure, an apparatus for controlling environmental conditions in connection with a closed space for occupancy is provided. The space may include a fan for circulating air in the space and an air conditioner configured for cooling the space. The apparatus may comprise a control adapted for coordinating the control of the fan and the air conditioner based on one or more sensed conditions.
One or more sensors with electronics Hardware Architecture may be associated with the control. For instance, a first sensor associated with the control for sensing a temperature as the sensed condition. Likewise, a second sensor may be associated with the control for sensing humidity as the sensed condition. A further sensor associated with the control for sensing the air flow as a third condition.
A thermostat may also have one or both of the first and second sensors and be adapted for transmitting the sensed presence or temperature for use in controlling the air conditioner, the fan, or both.
The control may be adapted to adjust a speed or a rotational state of the fan, and/or intensity or on/off status of an electric air conditioner, which may be connected to the fan or the control. The control may also include one or more devices for receiving or transmitting signals over a communication network, such as a local area network or the Internet. The control may be adapted for mounting at least partially within a junction box, and may include an indicator for indicating a condition to the person..
According to a further aspect of the disclosure, an apparatus for controlling the environmental conditions in a closed space that may be occupied by a person or more is provided. The apparatus comprises a fan positioned in the space for causing air movement therein, and a control for controlling the fan and adapted for being connected to the power source. The control includes a first sensor for sensing a temperature in the space. The control may optionally include other sensors described herein (e.g., a third sensor for sensing humidity, a air conditioner sensor, a gas or particulate sensor, or any other sensor for sensing environmental conditions).
A plurality of fans may each be controlled by the control, either individually or as a group. An air conditioner control device may also be regulated by the control, A thermostat may also be provided for regulating the operation of the fan, and an AC unit may be controlled by the thermostat. The control may include a infrared protocol adapted for wirelessly transmitting signals to the fan. A mobile controller may also be provided for controlling the control or the fan. The control may comprise a mechanically adjustable actuator for actuating at least the fan.
In an embodiment, the fan may include the occupancy sensor, or the control may include the occupancy sensor. The preference may be provided to the control by the person or persons.
Yet a further aspect of the disclosure pertains to an apparatus for controlling environmental conditions in connection with a building having a space for being occupied by a person, a first device for regulating one environmental condition in the space, and a second device for regulating another environmental condition in the space. The apparatus comprises a control adapted for being mounted to the partition, the control may include a first input for controlling the first or second device, a first indicator for indicating a first state of the first or second device, a second input for controlling the first or the second device, and a second indicator for indicating a second state of the first or second device.
The first device may comprise an air conditioner, and the first input may control an on/off state of the air conditioner or an air conditioner output cooling intensity. The first indicator may indicate the on/off state of the air conditioner or the air conditioner output cooling intensity. In this or any other case, the second device may comprise a fan, and the second input may control an on/off state of the fan or an operating condition of the by the fan. In this or other cases, the second indicator may indicate the on/off state of the fan or the operating condition of the fan. The operating condition may comprise a speed of the fan or a direction of the fan. The fan may be physically connected to the ceiling / wall and separate air conditioner may be split or window. The first indicator may indicate the on/off state and cooling intensity of the air conditioner fixture and the second indicator may indicate the temperature / humidity level of the air conditioner.
The control may comprise a sensor for sensing a condition selected from the group consisting of, temperature, humidity level, air flow and occupancy or any combination thereof. In particular, the control may comprise a temperature sensor and a motion or presence sensor in combination. The control may be adapted for controlling a group of first devices and/or a group of second devices.
In one particular embodiment, the first indicator and/or second indicator comprises a plurality of LEDs. The first input may comprise an upper panel and the second input may comprise a lower panel. In such case, the upper panel is adapted to activate, increase, decrease, or deactivate a state of one of the first or second devices and the lower panel is adapted to activate, increase, decrease, or deactivate the state of the other of the first or second devices.
Another aspect of the disclosure pertains to a control apparatus for controlling first and second devices for regulating environmental conditions in a closed space. The control apparatus comprises a first input for controlling the first device, a second input for controlling the second device, and a first sensor for sensing the occupancy in the closed space. The sensor may comprise occupancy or presence sensor, and a second sensor for sensing an environmental condition, such as temperature in the space, may be provided. The first and second sensors may be concentric, and the first input may comprise an upper portion of the control and the second input may comprise a lower portion of the control. The first sensor may be located between the upper portion of the control and the lower portion of the control.
The apparatus may further include a first indicator for indicating a status of the first device. A second indicator may also be provided for indicating a status of the second device. Each of the first and second indicators may comprise a plurality of LEDs.
Yet another aspect of the disclosure pertains to a system for controlling an environmental condition in a space. The system comprises first and second devices for regulating the environmental condition, and a controller for controlling the first device based on a control signal. The second device is adapted for being automatically controlled based on control information received from the first device.
In one embodiment, the first device includes a infrared protocol for transmitting the control information, and the second device includes a receiver for receiving the control information. The control may comprise a remote controller for receiving an input from a user and generating the control signal for regulating the environmental condition. The controller may be adapted for mounting to a partition associated with the space.
The first and second devices may be selected from the group consisting of fans, vents, registers, diffusers, air conditioners, air conditioner fixtures, windows, doors, and any combinations thereof. The first and second devices may be ceiling fans, such that one such fan may broadcast its condition to the second or other fan, which may adjust its control as a result.
Furthermore, a related aspect of the disclosure relates to a method for controlling an environmental condition in a space. The method comprises providing first and second devices for regulating the environmental condition, and providing a controller for controlling the first device based on a control signal, the second device adapted for being automatically controlled based on control information received from the first device.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

Fig 1 illustrates the sleep cycles with body & ambience temperature for a good night sleep;
Fig 2 illustrates the system Architecture for Interoperable Cooling system for heterogeneous Fan & AC in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 3 illustrates the system Architecture for Standalone Interoperable Cooling system for heterogeneous Fan & AC in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 4 illustrates the electronics Hardware Architecture for Retrofit Cooling System in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 5 illustrates the communication block diagram for Configuration & control of Integrated Cooling device in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 6 illustrates the communication block diagram for Configuration & control of Integrated Standalone Cooling device in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 7 illustrates the flowchart for Initial setting of Retrofit cooling device in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 8 illustrates the flowchart for Lifecycle operation of Retrofit Cooling device in accordance with the present invention;
Figure 9 illustrates the sequence Diagram for Pro-active temperature control in accordance with the present invention;
Figure 10 illustrates the Hardware architecture block diagram in accordance with the present invention;
Figure 11 illustrates the Architecture on Bare metal in accordance with the present invention;
Figure 12 illustrates the ambient temperature profile in contained space in accordance with the present invention;
Figure 13 illustrates the assembly of Interoperable cooling system in Fan in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 14 illustrates the contained space temperature profile with open loop and closed loop system in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 15 illustrates the contained space temperature profile with deep setting control fan speed and mode at SP 26C in accordance with the present invention;
Fig 16 illustrates the contained space temperature profile with deep setting control set temperature, fan speed and mode at SP 27C in accordance with the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The human body’s internal temperature shifts during a 24-hour period, which is known as circadian rhythm. The human body begins to shed warmth right about the time of the bed and continues to cool down until reaching its low point near daybreak, at around 5 am. The human body cools by expanding the blood vessels in the skin. When the ambient temperature at night starts to drop at night, we can notice that the hands and feet get warmer initially. This is since the body is letting the body heat escape through them to reduce the core temperature.

The ambience temperature during the sleep therefore must be maintained at optimum temperature, rather than subjected to too hot or too cold environment or it may affect the drop in the internal body temperature and cause disruption in sleep.
One of the research study [1] suggests that temperature of the room where user sleep is one of the most important factors in achieving quality sleep.

In another study [2], from 765K survey respondents, it was found that most people experience abnormal sleeping patterns during the hotter summer months when it may be more difficult to keep sleeping quarters at an optimal temperature. This may impact the body’s ability to cool itself at night. These researches conclude scientifically that a room temperature of around 18.3°C (65°F) is optimal for good night-time sleep.

Based on the various researches, the ambience temperature with respect to human body temperature for a good night sleep must have a direct proportion. As individual preferences may vary, the Set Point (SP) for the deep sleep quadrant can be made flexible with user input. As the sleep cycle, goes in 3 stages viz., Falling asleep, Deep sleep and Waking up, the ambience temperature should also be varied accordingly. Sleep cycles with body & ambience temperature for a good night sleep is shown in Fig 1. For e.g., in the Falling asleep mode, the temperature must be lower than the set point to ease the user into sleep and during wake up the ambience temperature must be raised gradually to feel refresh after woke up.

Reference is now made to FIG. 1, which schematically illustrates one possible embodiment of a control for regulating the operation of one or more environmental control device(s) such as for example, a fan and an air conditioner. For purposes of illustration, the fan is shown as an overhead or ceiling fan, but could be any type of fan, such as, for example, a pedestal fan, a wall-mounted fan, a window-mounted fan, an exhaust fan, or other type of fan for circulating air in a space. The other device may alternatively or additionally comprise an air conditioner (split / window). Also, while only two device is shown, it should be appreciated that the control may be used to control multiple devices, regardless of the particular form, as outlined further in the following description.

In one simple form, the control may serve as a switch for controlling or activating one or more of the devices, but other forms are possible as described herein.

In order to establish an interoperable cooling, we can devise a method which can control the heterogeneous cooling appliances using Machine-to-Machine communication in a specified Infrared communication channel. This is depicted using the architecture for Interoperable Cooling system for heterogeneous Fan & AC as shown in Fig 2.

The disclosed system includes a ceiling Fan (100) which is integrated with a retrofit controller device (101) indigenously developed for the purpose of measurement of ambient temperature & humidity and control the Air conditioning appliances (102) using Infra-red communication protocol. The system can be configured by user using a mobile app (104) for setting up initial configuration settings such as Set temperature, Type & make of Air conditioner, Wind-down and wake up time etc. which then are stored by a retrofit intelligent device (101). The retrofit intelligent device (101) then work autonomously using the configuration parameters received from user app (104) and maintains and provides uniform cooling across the room by locally controlling the speed of Celling fan appliance (100) and deep setting parameters such as Set Temperature, Mode, Swing, Fan speed etc. by using Infrared communication.

The smart device (101) can be an external stand-alone device or can be integrated with the Ceiling Fan (100) and has in-built intelligence to follow the edge Artificial Intelligence.

In a standalone case, the Cooling device (100) is a separate device that can be placed as close as to the user (105) for e.g. new bed. The System Architecture for Standalone Interoperable Cooling system for heterogeneous Fan & AC is shown in Fig 3.

In this case, there are 3 protocols used for connecting the said cooling devices to various client systems such as 433MHz RF communication (124) for Control of Ceiling Fan (100), Infrared communication (123) to control and deep setting of Air conditioner (102) and TCP/MQTT communication (125) for user configuration and control of the system.

The control includes Electronics hardware Architecture as shown in Fig 4 is configured for Retrofit Cooling System consists of an assembly (110) which includes the PCB with various electronics components and module, the most important being the Microcontroller Unit with Wi-Fi connectivity (112). The entire electronics is powered by a Power Supply unit (115). The Infrared LED arrays (111) are strategically placed at 6 different locations around the circular Assembly (110) so as to transmit the Infrared code at all directions. This is to make sure the Air conditioners even though placed at any location in the room can receive the signal and the code. The Temperature & Humidity sensor (116) helps to get the temperature and humidity of the ambient air which is required to perform arithmetic calculations to set the Speed and Status for Celling Fan (100) using a local relay and fan speed control unit (113) and Mode, Set Temperature, Swing and Power for Air conditioner Unit (102,103) using IR LED Array (111). The Cooling Hardware Unit also has a circular hole (114) to be able to place the entire unit around the Ceiling Fan rod inside the canopy.

The idea of Interoperable Cooling system is to provide user an autonomous system control which can control not only the ON and OFF of system but can also control deep settings such as AC temperature, Fan Speed, Swing, Cooling mode etc. and can effectively and efficiently establish the constant temperature profile during sleep. The Pro-active temperature control, which is depicted in below figure explains how the system can achieve this by various deep setting control.

As shown in Fig 5, the communication block diagram for Configuration & control of Integrated Cooling device includes a Mobile App (104) makes the initial configuration for the retrofit cooling device (101) using Control parameters (121) and later on can also be used to control the Ceiling Fan (100) and Air conditioner unit (102,103) using Wired connection (122) and Infrared communication (123) respectively for these appliances using control parameters (120).

In case of standalone cooling device, the only difference is the communication between the device and ceiling fan is established using 433MHz RF network (124) as shown in the fig 6. The retrofit cooling device (101) can also work autonomously -using the a programmed processor as explained in the charts illustrated in Fig 7.

When the system is power on for the first time, it needs to have the initial setting or configuration from user (104) in order to activate the autonomous mode of operation. The system must understand what is the type of Air conditioner (102, 103), so as to get the appropriate Infrared code for various deep setting control parameters (121), the comfortable Cooling Temperature setpoint and certain temporal parameters such as Wind down time and wake up time (120). The system only after knowing these parameters (120) can function autonomously. Once the system received these parameters, it uses the configurations received to initiate the system. The software now has t_set and h_set which are user defined by the user. It fetches the actual ambient temperature (t_cur) and relative humidity (h_cur) using sensor devices and compares them with the user set parameters (t_set and h_set), based on various comparison results (>, =, <) the system sets the initial run conditions for Ceiling Fan (100) and Air conditioner (102. 103) using the local relay control (122) and Infrared wireless communication (123) respectively.

The flowchart shown in Fig 8 depicts the operation of Retrofit cooling device (110) after the initialized parameters (120) are received and the system is restarted.

The Retrofit cooling device (110) first completes various initializations of software entities such as Infrared Code library, Input/output ports, EEPROM etc. Also the system must be connected to a local Wi-Fi network in order to perform the autonomous operation. If the Wi-Fi configuration is not done then the system will go into AP mode and start broadcasting the AP SSID e.g., “Cool-CRMP-XX”. The user then can connect to this SSID and complete the configuration using Access Point Portal and providing Wi-Fi Router SSID and password. Once the system is connected to Router or hotspot or is already connected to the previously connected SSID, it will start initialize the MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) client and Analytics. The system must then recurrently check if the MQTT client is connected to MQTT broker.

After every 15 minutes, the system checks the ambient temperature (t_cur) using sensor module (116) and compares it with the last known value of the parameter (t_last). If there’s a substantial change in the ambient temperature (>= 0.5C) then the system goes through series of conditional statements and performs the Ceiling Fan (100) and Air conditioner (102/103) power control and deep setting.

For e.g., if the currently read ambient temperature is between t_set and t_set+1 and the last recorded ambient temperature (t_last) is lower than the current recorded temperature (t_cur) then the system (110) sets the power control for Air conditioner (102) to ON and sets Temperature set point to t_set, Fan speed at Medium, also the ceiling fan power control is set to ON and the speed at Medium. This is for the reason that the system has established an ambient temperature withing specified limit however there’s slightly upward trend in temperature rise which can be controlled and corrected using these specified deep setting parameters. The same is explained using the sequence diagram as shown in Fig 9 respectively.

The hardware architecture is built on a Microcontroller based electronics system and the firmware or software architecture provides novel control over heterogeneous cooling appliances, as shown in Fig 10.

The architecture is built on the bare metal program basis due to hardware constraints and the Fig 11 picture depicts the various layer it is constituted of.

The main layers of the Firmware are elaborated as below

a. Communication Layer
The communication layer consists of various southbound and northbound communication protocols such as IR & RF (Southbound) and HTTP & MQTT (Northbound). The communication layers consist of lower level communication stacks including those which are ingredients for the higher-level protocols such as MQTT and HTTP.

b. Data Layer
The Data layer is responsible for handling various data (static or dynamic) transactions within hardware. The data layer has a data interfaces which is abstracted to again various types of data interfaces such as HTTP RESTful API, Local databases such as Shared Preferences or SQLite or any XML or JSON type file handlers.
The data layers can store configurational and transactional data in various type of systems.

c. Execution Layer
The execution layer consists of the business logic that implements the core logic algorithm along with various utility functions. If the software requires 3rd party libraries, they are part of the execution layer as well. The execution layer also has OTA client for Firmware update.

Currently there two main alternative approaches in existence

1. By Air Conditioner modes: Many of today’s modern Air Conditioners (102) comes in-built with different modes such as Cooling, Dry, Humidity etc which can invariably control the ambient temperature and humidity. Few of them also have advances functions such as Bio-sleep which can vary the set temperature over a sleep time of user. However, the disadvantage is that they still fail to maintain the homogenous temperature of the room and Fan is still required to maintain the uniform temperature and humidity in a contained space. Moreover, Air conditioner being still on, the energy efficiency is not achieved. This can be very well explained using the figure 12.

Typically, Air conditioner cools down the air but creates a layer of temperature in a room from Ceiling to Floor with a difference of around 4°F (~2.2C). With AC and Fan running, the set temperature can be increased by 2°C. In such scenarios, user prefers to keep the fan on all the time to maintain the uniform temperature across the room. However, as the Air conditioner and Fan are standalone systems are always on and never operated autonomously tend to create either too cool or too warm temperature conditions as the environmental conditions changes.

In another embodiment there is another way some level of automation is achieved using timers and schedules. In this approach the individual cooling appliances (Fan and Air conditioners) are operated autonomously creating timer to turn off or on. However this specific approach fails the intelligence of maintaining the ideal temperature conditions and still being individual level control doesn’t achieve the optimum cooling ambience.

Inventive step-
1. It communicates to various type and make of Air Conditioners (102) using Infrared communication (123). It only requires using different IR codes to control and operate different Air conditioners
2. It can have a 360 º infrared control
3. It is interoperable with any make and type of Air Conditioner
4. It can control the Ceiling fan (100) status and speed either locally (122) or using wireless communication
5. The desired temperature and humidity can be maintained using the deep settings of cooling appliances such as Fan speed, Cooling mode, set temperature and Swing
6. Deep sleep algorithm can achieve uniform temperature and humidity across the room using both Fan and Air conditioner at the same time
7. Energy is saved by intelligently turning off or changing the deep settings of appliances
8. The system can be configured as per custom user preferences
9. The system can automatically change the set temperature and speed as per varying seasonal changes in ambience
10. The system can be updated Over the Air (OTA)
11. The system can be programmed and reprogrammed to use with different types of cooling appliances

The figure 13 depicts how the system can be fit in the Celling Fan’s Canopy to integrate with Fan.

The various experiments conducted over a Proof of concept prototype has provided desirable results in achieving uniform temperature profile in a contained space with energy saving.

In the first phase of experiment, where only the Fan and Air conditioner status is controlled (On/Off). The system is able to eliminate the large variations in ambient temperature and maintain a confined temperature in a contained space. The figure 14 illustrates how the system could achieve 2ºC and 1ºC temperature difference showing contained space temperature profile with open loop and closed loop system

In further experiments, by controlling the Set Temperature, Mode and Fan Speed, we could achieve finer cooling ambience by interoperable controlling Fan and Air conditioner.

Fig 15 and Fig 16 shows how variation in deep settings of Ceiling Fan (100) and Air conditioners (102) and the corresponding control and maintenance of Room Temperature at a desirable set point of 26C and 27C respectively. The different data points captured are Ambient Temperature (200), Air conditioner power status – On or Off (201), Air conditioner Fan Speed from 0 to 4 speed (202), Air conditioner Set Point temperature (203) and Ceiling Fan power status – On or Off (204). It can be easily corroborated by the data points that the cooling device changed these various data points as against the change in ambient temperature.

As can be seen in Fig14, the open loop system did not exhibit any control over the ambient temperature and kept changing on the time scale. However, the Cooling devices created a closed loop system for a contained space room and maintained the temperature of ambience near set point.

Example:
Primary Sensor Type Data

Sr. No. Type of Sensor Parameter & Unit Data Type
1 Temperature Ambient Temperature in °C Float
2 Humidity Ambient Relative Humidity as a percentage of the amount needed for saturation Float
3 Infrared sensor To send and received different type of Infrared code as wrapped by libraries Bits

Secondary Sensor Type Data

Sr. No. Sensing data Parameter & Unit Data Type
1 Fan speed The speed of fan in rpm (revolutions per minute), usually provided in the step format from 0 to 3 or 0 to 5 or in terms of data set {Low, Mid, High} Integer
2 Fan swing The Boolean parameter representing if the swing is active or inactive Boolean
3 Set temperature The cooling temperature set point in °C Float
4 Cooling mode Typically provided as a enumerated data varies from one cooling appliances to other for e.g., { Cool, Dry, Heat, Fan } Enumerated String

The different sensor parameters are sent and received using a structured data format using JSON data format in which the first parameter defines the command type as shown in following table

Sr. No. Command Payload format Purpose
1 Reset {“cmd”:”reset”} Reset the controller and all data
2 Config {“cmd”:”config”, “server”:”server_name”, “port”:”port_number”, “username”:”user_name”, “password”:”password”} Send server configuration data
3 Report {“cmd”:”report”, “temperature”:”temp_cur”} Report all sensor data such as temperature, humidity, speed, swing etc.

Without further elaboration, it is believed that one skilled in the art can, using the description herein, utilize the present disclosure to its fullest extent. The embodiments described herein are to be construed as illustrative and not as constraining the remainder of the disclosure in any way whatsoever. While the embodiments have been shown and described, many variations and modifications thereof can be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of protection is not limited by the description set out above, but is only limited by the claims, including all equivalents of the subject matter of the claims. The disclosures of all patents, patent applications and publications cited herein are hereby incorporated herein by reference, to the extent that they provide procedural or other details consistent with and supplementary to those set forth herein.

Reference

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