Low-Cost Innovative Prototype of Automatically Adjustable Sun Louvers

Abstract

The energy crisis and global warming nowadays drive many issues of architectural practice and research fields. One of effective strategies in reducing the heat inside buildings, is to design enclosure responsive to the climate and radiation from the sun. Today, few of intelligent systems imparted to the innovative building skins, have been already developed in the product market, however; these devices unfortunately cannot be offered to all consumers due to their advanced technology and expensive cost. This issue brings up the question how it could be possible to develop the climate responsive building skins by low-cost technology and budget. This research therefore proposes the low-cost innovative prototype of automatically adjustable louvers with real-time solar tracking system. The prototype is composed of steel blades installed with inexpensive adjustable prefab hinges, solar tracker system with light sensor, and local microcontroller board. Applying LUX sensor to measure the light resistant meter and passing the signal to control panel for rotating the louver-blade according to the direct sun angle, is proposed as the key solution for efficiency sun louvers for real-time climate. Also designing the algorithm code on microcontroller board based on Open-source software (OSS), makes this prototype possibly low-cost comparing to other adjustable louvers. This exterior shading device with simple, uncomplicated, and economical systems can be installed into both existing buildings and new constructions, and hopefully be an ideal part of the “green” architectural solution affordable for every single households.