Monitoring of Indoor Relative Humidity Levels in Residential Dwellings: A Sensor Network Application

• Main Author: Lee, Lizabeth
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 2008
• Subjects: Sensor Network Application; Relative Humidity; Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/270; https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1267&context=etd

Indoor Air Quality is an increasing concern in the world today. The mere presence of people in a building or residence can significantly alter indoor air quality. Relative humidity over the range of normal indoor temperatures (66 - 80 degrees Farenheit) has been linked both directly and indirectly to various health and structural problems. The purpose of this project was to discover whether residential dwellings might benefit from an indoor humidification system. The project consisted of the deployment of three separate sensor networks consisting of 12 tmote sky modules manufactured by the Moteiv corporation, each equipped with a temperature and humidity sensor manufactured by Sensirion. Each tmote sky module continuously transmitted the raw data readings to a base station to be processed. The lifetime of each network was approximately four days of continuous data transmission. The results verified the hypothesis that relative humidity levels have a significant affect on the indoor environment and can be linked to the health and structural problems reported by the occupants of each monitored residence. Based on the project findings residential dwellings would benefit from an indoor humidification system, given the symptoms associated with relative humidity level problems exist.