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.