Local Warming MIT: The Future of Heating Buildings

Traditional warming systems and solutions may soon be a thing of the past as scientists are working on a smarter alternative known as local warming system. The newly developed system is likely to reduce energy consumption costs for warming a room as it tracks individuals present in the room and focuses heating element using infrared energy to warm the areas around the person instead of the entire room.

Understanding Local Warming

Scientists and researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing a novel system which can revolutionize the energy systems market. Scientists and developers have successfully created a new warming system known as Local Warming which uses LED bulbs to direct beams of infrared lights towards individuals present in the room.

Rather than heating the entire room wasting a substantial amount of energy, local warming system tracks the location of the individuals in the room using a new Wi-Fi-based location tracking technology activating heating elements positioned in the grid on the ceiling towards the individual. Instead of warming the entire room, the use of local warming system can save a huge amount of energy especially when used in large halls and public places like libraries, shopping malls or other commercial establishments.

The project was developed by MIT Senseable City Lab together with the MIT Center for Wireless Networks and Mobile Computing (motion tracking) and architecture firm Carlo Ratti.

Local Warming vs. Traditional heating Systems

Traditional warming systems are effective but they use a lot of energy in fulfilling their goals. The local warming system on the other hand is an intelligent system that works in accordance with the number of people present ion the room. The heating vents are directed towards the individuals present making a direct effort for the person concerned. Local warming systems are like having an individual sun for each person in the room.

Since local warming systems use technological tools including Wi-Fi-based motion tracking and ceiling-mounted dynamic heating elements, it knows when to start and stop for each individual. With traditional heating technology, people may feel too hot or too cold in the same room. Local warming system will make sure that each individual gets the desired heating depending on his individual need making their stay more comfortable. All the time the local warming heating system works and operates it would save as much as 90% of the energy spent using traditional heating systems.

Working Mechanism of Local Warming: Local warming systems create a personalized climate around each individual present in the room. It uses motion tracking and ceiling-mounted dynamic heating elements to target a single person and using its heating elements based on infrared radiation, transmit the desired temperature around the concerned individual. The system uses a cold mirror and other optics to create focused beams on each person thereby making it a personalized heating system. Rather than wasting energy on heating the entire room, Local warming system uses smart technology to heat the surrounding areas of each individual thereby making heating faster, more effective and more energy complaint.

Advantages of Local Warming

The biggest advantage of using intelligently designed local warming system is the conservation of energy. According to conservative estimates, local warming designed heating systems can bring energy consumption down to as much as 90 percent when there are only two people in the room. With limited energy at our disposal and even that is available at a premium, every small amount of energy saved can go a long way in keeping the environment clean and green.

Another intrinsic advantage of using local warming system is that is offers a customized heating solution for each person. Using traditional heating people present in a room can either feel too cold or too hot. Everyone has a different body temperature and local warming system tracks each individual and focuses just the right amount of energy beams towards the person to bring the temperature at optimum levels.