Website: https://amperboard.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/AmperBoard

Motivation:

Improve your energy consumption through custom hardware, an integrated platform and better AI in your home.

Our aim is to improve energy consumption habits with a smart and active management system. The objective is to give everyone access to solar energy and to reduce the waste of it by teaching people.

There are billions of people that need access to energy and our current technology is limited. With our system the efficiency of the energy in use is greatly improved while giving those people freedom to reach their objectives. This will be even more useful in the future when there is more energy being harvested from the sun.

The Solution:

Summary

The system that we developed fully during the SpaceApps weekend consists on three parts:

• Amper Predictor: smart algorithm developed to asses the generated energy for a given day depending on the weather forecast.

• Amper Core: hardware that monitors the energy generated from the solar panels and detects what devices are in use at any moment in the house and the amount of energy they use.

• Amper Board: the website that monitors everything and glues it together. It includes the Dashboard and an internal API.

Amper Predictor

Amper predictor is a set of algorithms that allows us to obtain an estimate of the energy capacity that we will have in the next days according to the weather forecast. We will use this estimate to be able to effectively organize the consumption of each household appliance throughout the week in Amper Board.

To calculate the energy prediction, we have had to use the Armstrong equation, which allows us to know the radiation in a particular place.

The radiation value must be altered with weather forecasting. We have calculated the impact of weather on radiation using regressive equations with the data provided by NASA for this challenge.

These calculations are performed and stored by the server, which was quickly made during SpaceApps Weekend. The whole code can be seen in the GitHub repository related to the backend: https://github.com/AmperBoard/amperboard-backend

Amper Core

We have developed a hardware component during the weekend that measures both the energy generated by the solar panels and the energy consumption from the house appliances and sends it to our cloud where data is processed.

The electronics for this are based on the Arduino Nano v3 board with several current meters. We are able to roughly differentiate which machine is in use.

Several basic electronic modules were used for this project:

• Arduino Nano v3 -> Very resourceful developement board with a Atmel 328p CPU.
• 2 x ACS712 -> Current sensor module. Used for measuring both generated and consumed current.
• ESP8266 -> Wi-Fi interface module, so that data could be sent to the cloud via a Wireless Network.
• 220v AC to 5v DC -> Ordinary power transformer so that all the electronics could be supplied without the need of a different battery. Just like the one you use for your cellphone.

For a better prototype we would change these with others more precise, as well as several voltimeters. In this way we'd be able to study every singular waveform induced in the system by plugged in devices to precisely differentiate the machines signatures.The enclosure was printed with a Stereolithography 3D printer. It was designed in-house. The next step for production would be to make the appropriate molds and produce it in mass with plastic injection.

AmperCore is meant to be connected in a solar panel installation, between the battery and the solar panel (so that generated energy can be measured) and right after the battery, before any othe device is connected (so that all consumed energy can be measured).

Once properly installed by a qualified technician AmperCore will automatically sync and start sending data so that the user can begin to use it right after installation.

3D Model (top and bottom):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6wC6pXufzIEbFpqZWVMb0w3LUk/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6wC6pXufzIEZkt5WmJMajdzemM/view?usp=sharing

Amper Board

The board is a web platform that handles the user interaction with the rest of the components. It is intuitive and its two main functions are informative and for management.

The first screen is a graph with current information; it includes a graph of the last 24 hours, the devices that are currently in use and any notification relevant to the user. The data comes from an API that is connected to the Amper Board, which sends the data in real-time and it’s then available for the platform. The board dynamically processes this data to create a consumption profile for each dashboard that will later be used by the planner.

The screen planning is there for people to be able to organize next week according to their energy needs and production. It will show next week's daily available energy based on the prediction made from the weather forecast and the user can fill them with the different machines. Furthermore, there is a button that makes the AI to automatically organize them based on your habits and predictions.

When a user updates their settings in the corresponding Settings tab the prediction will be more accurate from the geolocation and weather forecast.

Here is the repository with the front-end code: https://github.com/AmperBoard/amperboard-frontend

The one with the back-end code: https://github.com/AmperBoard/amperboard-backend

Our experience

It's been two really intense days. We had all looked at the challenges and during the afternoon-night of Friday we dedicated ourselves to brainstorming and defining the idea to the end, without computers, without soldering pots, only paper. Once we decided and excited about the project, we started to shape it. On Saturday morning we started directly preparing the database model, designing the Amper Core housing and defining the graphics of the platform. We also plan and buy the necessary components for the Amper Core.

Then we made a break for lunch, a delicious Space Paella. It was a fun time to get to know the projects of other teams as well as contribute ideas to improve our projects. We kept working all day and night, solving many and all of the problems that came at us while having a great time.

The next morning some of us got to sleep a couple of hours and one of our team members -- the one with a stomach virus -- a bit longer. Afterwards it was just the final stage, wrapping up things and preparing for the presentation. Two of the team members spent a lot of time preparing for it, but it was totally worth it.

Finally we showcased our project to the public and jury and they deemed it the best solution overall, getting many compliments about how complete of a solution it is. We also won the prize for best hardware and a local one for the project that looks like it can become a real product.

We are a high performance team that love working together, vote for us so we can continue and make our dreams come true!