Use of Polar Heliostats to Improve Levels of Natural Lighting inside Buildings with Little Access to Sunlight.

The growing need to increase environmental and energy sustainability in buildings (housing, offices, warehouses, etc.) requires the use of solar radiation as a renewable source of energy that can help to lower carbon footprint, making buildings more efficient and thereby contributing to a more sustainable planet, while enhancing the health and wellbeing of its occupants. One of the technologies deployed in the use of solar energy in buildings is heliostats. In this context, this paper presents an analysis of the performance of a heliostat illuminator to improve illumination in a classroom at the Campus of Rabanales of the University of Cordoba (Spain). A design of a system in charge of monitoring and measuring daylighting variables using Arduino hardware technology and free software is shown. This equipment develops the communications, programming and collection of lighting data. In parallel, installation of an artificial lighting system complementary to the natural lighting system is implemented. Finally, an analysis of the impact of the proposed solution on the improvement of energy efficiency is presented. Specifically, it is estimated that up to 64% of savings in artificial lighting can be achieved in spaces with heliostatic illuminators compared to those without them.

Monitoring of Temperature in Retail Refrigerated Cabinets Applying IoT Over Open-Source Hardware and Software.

The control of refrigeration in the food chain is fundamental at all stages, with special emphasis on the retail stage. The implementation of information and communication technologies (IoT, open-source hardware and software, cloud computing, etc.) is representing a revolution in the operational paradigm of food control. This paper presents a low-cost IoT solution, based on free hardware and software, for monitoring the temperature in refrigerated retail cabinets. Specifically, the use of the ESP-8266-Wi-Fi microcontroller with DS18B20 temperature sensors is proposed. The ThingSpeak IoT platform is used to store and process data in the cloud. The solution presented is robust, affordable, and flexible, allowing to extend the scope of supervising other relevant parameters in the operating process (light control, energy efficiency, consumer presence, etc.).

Proposal for the Design of Monitoring and Operating Irrigation Networks Based on IoT, Cloud Computing and Free Hardware Technologies.

In recent decades, considerable efforts have been devoted to process automation in agriculture. Regarding irrigation systems, this demand has found several difficulties, including the lack of communication networks and the large distances to electricity supply points. With the recent implementation of LPWAN wireless communication networks (SIGFOX, LoraWan, and NBIoT), and the expanding market of electronic controllers based on free software and hardware (i.e., Arduino, Raspberry, ESP, etc.) with low energy requirements, new perspectives have appeared for the automation of agricultural irrigation networks. This paper presents a low-cost solution for automatic cloud-based irrigation. In this paper, it is proposed the design of a node network based on microcontroller ESP32-Lora and Internet connection through SIGFOX network. The results obtained show the stability and robustness of the designed system.