An autonomous system was designed to travel through duct work to irradiate and kill microorganisms with ultraviolet radiation. The robot operates with a home made circuit board, using a basic stamp. The board operates using 5 volts, and the UV light operates using 12 volts, thus, we created a home made voltage regulator which allows the entire system to operate off of one 12 volt battery. The robot has an array of sensors, including visible light sensors which trigger an electrical relay that turns off the light fixture if any outside light source (other the the robots UV) is detected to prevent anyone from being irradiated. It also has sensors to measure temperature, humidity, air quality, and transmits the information to a receiver on a laptop which displays the information. The robot also uses radio frequency (RF) identification to determine its location in duct work, which is also simultaneously transmitted and displayed with the sensor values. This allows whoever is running the robot to record the temperature (leaks), humidity (conditions for mold growth), and air quality (hazardous vapors or volatile organic compounds) at specific sections of duct work. For example, if a temperature spike was detected 7 feet into the duct work, you know that you should survey the duct work at that distance in order to detect possible leaks and improve efficiency of your HVAC system (air conditioning).
Rhizopus stolonifer
Aspergillus niger
