Two professors at Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture and two of their colleagues have received a patent from the U.S. Patent Office for their development of a system for remote energy consumption identification.
Jeff Haberl and Charles Culp, professors of architecture, along with David Claridge and William Turner, Texas A&M engineering professors, developed the system.
The four invented a remote energy consumption identification system for facilities, such as homes or schools. The system uses a processor, a memory coupled to the processor, and an energy consumption database accessible to the processor.
“A need has arisen for an improved system and method of remotely identifying and analyzing energy consumption systems and components associated with a variety of facilities,” says a description of the patent, No. 7,225,089, on the U.S. Patent Office website. “The invention provides a system and method for remote identification of energy consumption systems and components that addresses shortcomings and disadvantages associated with prior energy consumption system and component identification and analysis.”
Identification and analysis is necessary, the invention’s developers said, because schools, office buildings, homes, department stores, hospitals, and other types of facilities consume energy in varying amounts using a variety of different types of systems and components.
“For example,” they said, “energy consumption systems and components may be used for environmental control, such as heating and cooling, for lighting, for security system applications, for computer usage applications, and for a variety of other energy consumption applications corresponding to the particular type of facility.”
Their invention, they said, offers an improvement over evaluating energy consumption systems and components onsite, because it is expensive and time consuming.
“Access to the facility and/or the energy consumption systems and components is generally not required, thereby substantially reducing the time and costs associated with system and component identification,” wrote the invention’s developers.
Haberl, Culp and other Texas A&M researchers were honored for their accomplishments at the Texas A&M University System's Office of Technology Commercialization April 4 at the 2008 Patent and Innovation Awards.
The group, consisting of 30 individuals and teams currently employed by the Texas A&M System, whose inventions and plant varieties were granted plant and patent protection from the United States Patent & Trademark Office in 2007, were honored.
The ceremony took place at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center in the George Bush Presidential Library complex.
