Sensory platform architecture for IN SITU monitoring the thermal comfort in rural environments – The case study at Federal Rural University of Amazonian, Brazil

Abstract

This research presents an IN SITU sensory platform developed through the integration of air temperature and relative humidity sensors on an ecosystem in order to obtain some thermal characteristic of the rural environments. This sensory platform contains an expert system to detect the behaviors of environmental variables that result in risk or without risk alert to the thermal comfort for human and animal health. For this, the expert system analyses the environmental thermal conditions of the UFRA University, through temperature and humidity index (THI). The THI values estimated (processed) from data of temperature and relative humidity during the year 2012. Four intervals of THI were used to classify human health performance (THI<74: comfort, 74⩽THI<79: hot; 79⩽THI⩽84: too hot, and THI>84: extremely hot), and two intervals to classify animal production (79⩽THI⩽84: dangerous and THI>84: emergency). The Amazon is located in the equatorial region and has a warm and humid climate that the prevailing mode reveals an alternation of two seasons throughout the year, hot and humid summer and rainy winter. The results that the most critical period occurs between May and October, although it was observed in every day of every year, the THI values during the hottest hours of the day (15:00pm) range between 75.9 and 86.3, where humans and animals can suffer some degree of thermal stress, affecting negatively both. Therefore, we consider this platform as a good solution for thermal monitoring, which is based on IN SITU measurement technologies for rural environments.