Ready to start a low-power or energy-monitoring microcontroller-based design project? You’re in luck. We’re featuring eight award-winning, green energy-related designs that will help get your creative juices flowing.
The projects listed below placed at the top of Renesas’s RL78 Green Energy Challenge.
Electrostatic Cleaning Robot: Solar tracking mirrors, called heliostats, are an integral part of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants. They must be kept clean to help maximize the production of steam, which generates power. Using an RL78, the innovative Electrostatic Cleaning Robot provides a reliable cleaning solution that’s powered entirely by photovoltaic cells. The robot traverses the surface of the mirror and uses a high voltage AC electric field to sweep away dust and debris.
Parts and circuitry inside the robot cleaner
Cloud Electrofusion Machine: Using approximately 400 times less energy than commercial electrofusion machines, the Cloud Electrofusion Machine is designed for welding 0.5″ to 2″ polyethylene fittings. The RL78-controlled machine is designed to read a barcode on the fitting which determines fusion parameters and traceability. Along with the barcode data, the system logs GPS location to an SD card, if present, and transmits the data for each fusion to a cloud database for tracking purposes and quality control.
Inside the electrofusion machine (Source: M. Hamilton)
The Sun Chaser: A GPS Reference Station: The Sun Chaser is a well-designed, solar-based energy harvesting system that automatically recalculates the direction of a solar panel to ensure it is always facing the sun. Mounted on a rotating disc, the solar panel’s orientation is calculated using the registered GPS position. With an external compass, the internal accelerometer, a DC motor and stepper motor, you can determine the solar panel’s exact position. The system uses the Renesas RDKRL78G13 evaluation board running the Micrium µC/OS-III real-time kernel.
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Water Heater by Solar Concentration: This solar water heater is powered by the RL78 evaluation board and designed to deflect concentrated amounts of sunlight onto a water pipe for continual heating. The deflector, armed with a counterweight for easy tilting, automatically adjusts the angle of reflection for maximum solar energy using the lowest power consumption possible.
RL78-based solar water heater (Source: P. Berquin)
Air Quality Mapper: Want to make sure the air along your daily walking path is clean? The Air Quality Mapper is a portable device designed to track levels of CO2 and CO gasses for constructing “Smog Maps” to determine the healthiest routes. Constructed with an RDKRL78G13, the Mapper receives location data from its GPS module, takes readings of the CO2 and CO concentrations along a specific route and stores the data in an SD card. Using a PC, you can parse the SD card data, plot it, and upload it automatically to an online MySQL database that presents the data in a Google map.
Air quality mapper design (Source: R. Alvarez Torrico)
Wireless Remote Solar-Powered “Meteo Sensor”: You can easily measure meteorological parameters with the “Meteo Sensor.” The RL78 MCU-based design takes cyclical measurements of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and supply voltage, and shares them using digital radio transceivers. Receivers are configured for listening of incoming data on the same radio channel. It simplifies the way weather data is gathered and eases construction of local measurement networks while being optimized for low energy usage and long battery life.
The design takes cyclical measurements of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and supply voltage, and shares them using digital radio transceivers. (Source: G. Kaczmarek)
Portable Power Quality Meter: Monitoring electrical usage is becoming increasingly popular in modern homes. The Portable Power Quality Meter uses an RL78 MCU to read power factor, total harmonic distortion, line frequency, voltage, and electrical consumption information and stores the data for analysis.
The portable power quality meter uses an RL78 MCU to read power factor, total harmonic distortion, line frequency, voltage, and electrical consumption information and stores the data for analysis. (Source: A. Barbosa)
High-Altitude Low-Cost Experimental Glider (HALO): The “HALO” experimental glider project consists of three main parts. A weather balloon is the carrier section. A glider (the payload of the balloon) is the return section. A ground base section is used for communication and display telemetry data (not part of the contest project). Using the REFLEX flight simulator for testing, the glider has its own micro-GPS receiver, sensors and low-power MCU unit. It can take off, climb to pre-programmed altitude and return to a given coordinate.
High-altitude low-cost experimental glider (Source: J. Altenburg)
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