Development of a smart sensor for controlling artificial lights and venetian blinds

Cooling loads in office buildings with large glazing facades are increase due to solar radiation penetrating the windows and over-heating the rooms. Moreover solar radiation provides natural lighting in the rooms, which might be higher than expected in the summer months and causes glare problems. In order to balance optimally between the reduction of cooling loads and natural lighting a controller can be applied to select the best combination between the position of blinds and whether the artificial lights will operate or not. 
The developed controller, arduino based, is applied in an office building and is controlling the level of venetian blinds and their angle. The application is using as input an indoor and outdoor illuminance sensor, and an occupancy sensor. The controller is based on fuzzy rules and the fuzzification parameters are optimized offline using matlab’s optimization algorithms.