A cost-effective space sensing prototype for an intelligent refrigerator

This paper presents a volume sensor for an intelligent refrigerator system. The proposed system is cost-effective and automatically monitors the amount of space, and indirectly the usage, in a refrigerator compartment. An extension to the proposed design allows the system to automatically alert the homeowner of the refrigerator\´s status through short message service (SMS). This added dimension of automatic detection and communication provides an attractive enhancement to available commercial models of "smart" refrigerators.