Mobile Thermostat

Project Proposal

Overview

In the Mobile Thermostat project, I will build a mobile robot to gather environmental data from different points in a room. Traditional thermostats read temperature and humidity from a single point but by gathering data from many points, we can reach a better understanding of the environment over a larger area.

Objectives

The Mobile Thermostat project aims to make improvements to the traditional thermostat..

1. Measure temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. The purpose of the project is to increase the amount of data gathered over that of a traditional thermostat. If the Mobile Thermostat measures these data from a single point multiple times a day, then the project will have matched the sensing functionality of a thermostat.
2. Create a mobile robot. The next step after gathering data points is to ensure that the Mobile Thermostat measures data from multiple points in a room. A walking robot is preferred over a wheeled robot. The project will explore motion planning and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and use an inertial measurement unit to track relative position of the robot. The robot will collect environment data and move to a different location in the room periodically (e.g. every 3 hours). The robot should run between 12 and 24 hours without a recharge.
3. Stream and display data. As the Mobile Thermostat receives data, it will wirelessly transmit the data to an external computer to log and display the data. Since the robot will collect data from different locations in the room, there are multiple ways to display the data. The average temperature of all the data points within a temporal window will be displayed. If the project successfully maps the floor space of the room, I could display the temperatures at each of the measured locations.