Bob,

A few years ago we looked at home environment control with fuzzy logic
where we implemented a control system with a many different competing
solutions that the fuzzy logic rules would resolve into a actual control heat
and ac on and off signals.

Some of the green rules that were used to save energy

    IF room IS cold AND day IS morning         THEN  heat IS OFF
    IF room IS cold AND OutsideTemp IS hot THEN  heat IS OFF
    IF room IS hot AND OutsideTemp IS cold THEN  ac IS OFF

Rules are evaluated by weight of truth so green rules have the effect of
moving when heat and ac are actually used. The amount of generated code
was small. About 2K or so in a PIC.

Email me you would like a compiled listing of the code used.

Regards

w..
--
Walter Banks
Byte Craft Limited
Tel. (519) 888-6911
http://www.bytecraft.com
walter@bytecraft.com




Bob wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> With the rise in heating fuel costs I have thought about using PICs to
> control the radiators at home.
>
> I have some ideas but would appreciate any tips and shortfalls to my ideas.
>
> I would be looking to control 6 rooms but I don't want to go to the hassle
> of ripping up the floor and fitting zoned manifolds etc. I was thinking of
> controlling each radiator on a room by room method with each room
> controlling its own temperature. A central 'controller' would communicate to
> the rooms with on/off and temperature settings. My thoughts about how to
> start are:
>
> 1.      Each room has a PIC controlling the room temperature and on/off
> times receiving these settings from a central controller possibly using RF?
> 2.      Central controller would look at outside temperature and adjust on
> times to suit. Different on /off times for each day of week.
>
>
> The heating system is about 15 years old and service bi-annually. It just
> doesn't warrant the cost to change the boiler etc. spending 1,000's to save
> 100 per annum!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bob

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