Energy Efficient Door Control

Abstract: A broad study of ways to increase energy efficiency in an automatic sliding door. The study was made up of several distinct phases. A research phase where traffic data was gathered, a modelling phase where the gathered data was used to create a traffic model, a test phase where a physical test door was set up and programmed according to the model, and finally an analysis phase where the gathered test data was analysed to identify how better energy efficiency might be attained. Statistics for traffic data was gathered from observations of doors installed at retailers, hospitals, and train stations. This data was subjected to a statistical analysis and a java program was developed to create the traffic simulation that was used to create composite models of the observed doors. The traffic simulation simulated the appropriate timing intervals for door openings and re-openings which was then programmed into the physical test door. The door was disconnected from the standard power supply and was instead fed with battery power which was charged with a small current from a lab power supply, the energy consumption of the doors was measured with a logger which logged the battery voltage and the current to and from the battery. With the test equipment in place a series of power consumption tests were made. Initially several reference tests were made to establish a baseline for power consumption and subsequent tests were made to test various optimization methods in order to determine efficient ways to reduce power consumption. The analysis of the results yielded several ways to improve energy efficiency that could be applied either alone or together.