B4: Group B - Schroeder

Individual Projects - Viability of Autonomous Homes

For the AE510 term project, I am working with Yasmina Shields to research current technologies in the field of sustainable buildings, specifically autonomous housing. Before going deeper into our intended term paper, I wanted to see how Philadelphia compares to the rest of the U.S. on this topic.

“When it comes to sustainable housing, the city of Philadelphia ranks fourteenth in the nation according to a recent Environmental Protection Agency report. Fortunately, that’s starting to change.” [1] In the next four years, there are already five LEED Platinum projects to be constructed in residential areas. One of the most notable projects will be the abandoned block at 17th and Carpenter Streets. Once a line of abandoned warehouses, it will soon be home to eleven town houses, six condos, and a corner commercial space all built to LEED Platinum standard. We hope to incorporate future projects like these into our final paper. Hopefully, similar projects will become commonplace and raise Philadelphia to the top of the list.

As rising Seniors, we are actively looking for ideas for our Senior Design Project which is why we chose our proposed topic. One competition that is in the field of autonomous housing is the Solar Decathlon Competition. Hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, collegiate teams design energy-efficient houses entirely powered by the sun that is affordable, attractive and easy to live in [2]. As the name suggests, the decathlon consists of 10 contests: Architecture, Market Appeal, Engineering, Communications, Affordability, Comfort Zone, Appliances, Home Life, Commuting, and Energy Balance. This relates to intelligent building as autonomous housing is creating intelligent features to make everyday living easier.

In our term paper, we will focus on features of autonomous housing as well as relative costs to implement these features into pre-existing homes. One of the greatest challenges I can foresee is not being able to find enough data. For example, we also want to focus on how autonomous homes can assist the elderly or disabled, but there is most likely little to no research on the topic. Using the article Smart homes - Current features and future perspectives [3], we are able to obtain a plethora of data on current features of autonomous housing, but not on the impact of human living.

Despite this, I believe we can construct an exciting and educational term paper.


References:
[1] http://www.keystoneedge.com/features/philadelphiasustainablehousing0620.aspx
[2] http://www.solardecathlon.gov/
[3] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378512209002606

  EDIT: Comments left on Faisal's and A.J.'s original posts.

B4 - Group B - SHIELDS

Danielle Schroeder and I plan to research the viability of autonomous homes, where we define autonomous homes as being almost or completely self-sufficient. These can be sustainable and utile features that would make a living environment almost Star Trek-esque, from lights going off as one exits a room, automatic doors, etc., to sustainable features that help the house maintain a “net-zero” status. There is no gas supply, so energy is generated internally either by geothermal, solar, or wind energy; collected rainwater is collected and used; and waste can be recycled or disposed of internally. In our investigation we will further define autonomous homes and provide an overview of current and future technologies.  We’ll then look into what technologies are currently on the market, reasons for why they are not in widespread use, and list incentives to look towards autonomous living environments for homeowners/businesses. This study will be pertinent to the objectives of AE 510 in that it will introduce us to more revolutionary areas of intelligent and green infrastructure that have not yet been expanded upon in class.  

As mentioned during class discussion, the civil engineering industry is behind in terms of transformative technology; now with the advent of autonomous vehicles (Google cars), we think that self-sustaining houses are what’s coming up next and what we will be living in in the near future. The main inspiration for this investigation were from entries we have seen at the Solar Decathlon, and we are interested in partaking in the international competition for our senior design project next year.

A couple other things we plan to include in our report (perhaps in a chart): comparing features and their costs, assessing their feasibility, what tax exemptions are available as incentives for homeowners to invest in this technology, etc. In addition to the economic and environmental benefits that autonomous living brings, we will explore how else it can be of use. In prior blog posts the class has discussed having robots assist the elderly/disabled in retirement homes; for our study we will explore how an autonomous home can allow people to live their lives with limited human assistance, as well as any other potential uses.

Sources we used for our outline:

[1] http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Self_Sufficient_Homes

[2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378512209002606

[3] http://www.solardecathlon.gov/

Comments:
Qallaf
Whitesell