Debadeepta Tagore, M.S. Student, Electrical Engineering
Adwayt Nadkarni, M.S. Student, Electrical Engineering
Nancy Ma, PhD student, Architecture
Alex Waegel, Research Associate
CEBD, Weitzman School of Design, Architecture in collaboration withTALand with blockchain expert Lior Glass
Project Description
The BlockPenn project deploys a distributed ledger network to connect IoT sensors for energy and environmental monitoring across the Penn campus. The network allows for individual-level monitoring of energy consumption and environmental performance for opt-in users. Users across the campus will be able to participate in the network and accrue points through the “PennCoin” rewards system based on their performance over time.
Infrastructure: BlockPenn includes blockchain/IoT infrastructure, designed to be easily expandable and scalable to include additional use cases and capabilities in the future.
Sensors: Low-cost single-board computers (Raspberry Pis) are used as the BlockPenn endpoints, connected to a local network of IoT sensors. In addition to energy monitoring, the current pilot includes air quality sensors, artificial light usage monitoring, temperature and temperature and humidity sensors.
Reward systems: In order to incentivize participants to improve their performance, the BlockPennnetwork uses smart contracts to issue “PennCoins”- a points system which rewards participants for improvement in energy and environmental performance over time.
Dashboard: the system includes a dashboard which monitors and visualizes the individual user’s performance based on the sensor data.
