PARTIAL INCOMPLETE PROJECT PROPOSAL

AUTO-TECH

BY

GROUP NO. 66

REAL TIME EMBEDDED SYSTEM

DEPARTMENT OF NETWORKS

COLLEGE OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SCIENCES

A Project Proposal Submitted to the college of Computing and Information sciences for the Study Leading to a Project in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering of Makerere University.

Supervisor

Mr. Odongo Steven.

Department of Networks

School of Computing and Informatics Technology, Makerere University

sodongo@cis.mak.ac.ug, +256-775-199511, +256-702-102999

October 2014.

GROUP MEMBERSHIP:

#	Names	Registration Number	Student Number	Signature
1	BONGOMIN MICHEAL	11/U/16336/EVE	211008202
2	SSEMAGANDA ALLAN PAYNE	11/U/16392/EVE	211012215
3	KALUNDA DERRICK	11/U/16413/EVE	211015118
4	OTIM PAUL	11/U/16306/EVE	211007769

1. Introduction

Over time, there has been a manual way of switching on/off of lights, among other appliances like the air conditioners. At times people tend to forget to switch them off and thus consumption continues in their absence. This has raised electricity bills to the roof for victims of “electricity switching off forgetfulness” syndrome. This system is intended to trigger switching on and off of lights with presence/absence of a human being in a room respectively. This does not exclude the exterior lights because similar to the internal lights, people tend to forget them on during day and this hikes the electricity consumption. To address this aspect, the system will automatically switch lights on and off during night and day respectively. Furthermore the proposed system will be in position to detect room temperatures and keep track of this on a liquid crystal display and air-conditioner control incase the temperatures rise way above the normal degrees.

1.1            Background

Currently in most of the organizations in Uganda today, the process is like; someone switches on the lights on entering a room but normally very few people remember to switch off on leaving the room; this inspired us to come up with a system that could do this automatically. Furthermore, we also got the idea of extending the system to make it accommodate the external lights to the building in a way that the outer lights would go off and on during day and night respectively. For example; have you ever imagined why an air conditioner would stay on in a room when there is practically no body in the room? Now with the Auto-Tech system, which is aimed at reducing on the power consumption, the air conditioners will be designed to only go on when there is an individual in particular room and temperatures go above normal simply because it is imperative not to have an air conditioner running in a room that has no individuals occupying it at a particular time.

1.2            Problem Statement

The problem this project will address is to reduce on the cost of electricity by switching on lights and the air conditioners when they are required and switching them off when they are not required. This will also reduce on the costs spent on human personnel to manage the lighting system in that the application is to be developed in a way that it will switch on lights when someone enters a room and switching them off when someone leaves a room. On the other hand the system will also manage the outer/security lights so that when it switches them off when during day and it also automatically switches them on during night.

Furthermore the system will be in position to manage temperature control by turning on the air-conditioning system and alarming personnel in case of excessive or even lethal temperatures.

1.3            Main Objective

To reduce on the power consumption costs by automatically switching off lights and the air conditioner control system when not required.

1.4            Specific Objectives

1.4.1                    To ensure that the external lights to a building are only switched on during night and they are kept off during day.

1.4.2                    To ensure that the people are not bothered to switch on lights when accessing a room and also not to forget and leave the lights on when leaving a room.

1.4.3                    To ensure safety of personnel in case of AC failure and temperatures exceed the norm by triggering an alarm to notify people of the danger.

1.5            Scope ( where applicable )

The scope provides for the boundary of the research in terms of depth of investigation, content, sample size, methodology, geographical and functionality coverage.

1.6            Significance

1.6.1                    There will be a significant reduction on the cost of electricity because there will be no power consumption when a particular room is not in use.

1.6.2                    This system will also improve on the safety of the people by triggering an alarm whenever the temperatures exceed the normal degrees.

1.6.3                    There will be efficient utilization of power by switching of security lights during day and switching them on during night hours.

1.6.4                    There will be reduced employment costs, since the system will be monitored using sensors to perform a particular task which will reduce the cost of human employment that are responsible for monitoring the lighting system.

2.    Literature Review