Friday, November 21, 2014

Robots lived in houses for 6 years to measure their Energy Efficiency


You wouldn't notice anything strange in these houses, other than the fact that no one would get it or get out. For six years, three houses in Tenesse were lived in only by robots - and you should thank them for it.

No need to rush to your doomsday bunker, there's no risk of an alien invasion of the robotic kind. These robots were doing us all a favor, and were set up in these houses as a long term experiment to test foe energy efficiency. It's the kind of test humans wouldn't be so great at, as different people would mean a lot of uncontrolled variables that could jeopardize the results. Using robots, researchers could ensure all the circumstances to be just perfect.

The houses had lots of devices to emulate the human presence, turning devices on and off, and even robotic arms to open and close the fridge. They even had a "perspiration machine" to simulate the sweat and breathing of people inside the house.

Now that the experiment ended, they have 6 years of data that validate that energy efficient homes can save quite a great deal. The most efficient house spent four times less in utilities compared to the "normal" control house. Now, these findings will be taken into account so new houses will be more efficient than ever.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Amazon Store