Development of Wireless Energy Monitoring Systems and
Smartphone Apps
Carl Cooper, Professor Yoon G. Kim, Calvin College
Introduction
As renewable energy systems are
becoming more and more popular
and accessible to individual users,
there arises a need to monitor these
systems. There are many different
aspects that we would want to
measure data on these systems,
such as power, energy generated,
solar intensity, winds speeds,
ambient temperature, and more.
However, these systems do not
come equipped to measure such
data; much less display them for the
user. The goal of this project was to
develop a wireless system that will
be able to monitor these kinds of
systems, among others, and for
convenience send data to a
smartphone app.
Problem Statement
Needs:
• Most products do not have a way to
monitor their behavior over time
without physically going to them and
measuring readings with a meter.
• There are other projects that will
monitor systems wirelessly, but they
require existing Wi-Fi networks.
Objectives:
• The goal of this project was to
develop a system that will be able to
monitor many systems wirelessly on
a smartphone using its own Wi-Fi
network so as to be universally
deployable as well as minimizing
power consumption.
Methods
Hardware used:
• Android devices
• RN-XV WiFi module
• Analog circuits and ATMega 328
microcontroller
Software used:
• Arduino 1.0 IDE
• Eclipse IDE
The system was developed
incrementally starting with retrieving
data from a test circuit, to creating a
wireless network, to receiving real
time data on the app and processing
the data.
Energy System
(solar panel, electric
car battery, etc.)
Results
Faith and Engineering
A system that monitors energy
systems was developed. A
microcontroller can be connected to
an energy system such as the
battery of a solar panel and the
microcontroller will create its own
Wi-Fi network that an Android app
can connect to and receive data.
The app will then display the data in
various graphs to better analyze the
data as well as save the data for
later analysis.
As Christians, we are caretakers for
God’s creation. This device allows for
better stewardship because it allows
energy systems to be monitored
better, thereby giving the potential of
being more efficient, while minimizing
the impact on the environment due to
burying cable or walking out to check
the performance manually.
A custom microcontroller was
designed and built and the Wi-Fi
module was put into a wake and
sleep cycle to reduce energy
consumption down to a few micro
amps for the majority of the time.
This results in the ability for the
device to remain powered for
extended periods of time.
Conclusions
From this project, the process of a
design project was learned from
setting goals, defining constraints,
researching, to implementation. A
functional system to monitor energy
systems wirelessly on Android apps
was successfully implemented and
tested for stability.
Data
References
Web Server
• Jackson, Wallace. Android Apps
for Absolute Beginners. Berkeley,
CA: Apress, 2011
• "WiFly Wireless SpeakJet Server."
SparkFun Electronics. SparkFun
Electronics, 04 Mar. 2010. Web.
11 July 2014.
Microcontroller
Wi-Fi Module
HTTP packets
Android App
Figure 1. Block diagram of system
Acknowledgements
Figure 2. Final system showing custom analog
circuits, microcontroller, Wi-Fi module and
Android app
Engineering Sustainability Research
Fund by Joel and Linda Zylstra