Centralized monitoring and control of air conditioning units

A virtual instrument has been developed using LabVIEW graphical programming language to monitor current drawn by air conditioning units (ACUs) at a central location. Program is flexible and permits operator to control, override and limit operational time of individual units so that wasteful expenditure is avoided. Concurrently, in the event of a power outage, load on back up DG sets can be programmed and restricted only to areas of emergency. Minimal hardware changes are required for implementation of new design system in existing ACU installations. Substantial reduction in cabling cost is achieved by designing additional hardware to reduce number of cables, connecting data acquisition card to AC systems.