PRISM AUTO-LIGHT CONCEPT PAPER

AUTO-TECH

By

PRISM TECH GROUP

REAL TIME EMBEDDED SYSTEM

DEPARTMENT OF NETWORKS

COLLEGE OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SCIENCES

A Concept Paper submitted to the College of Computing and Information Sciences

For the Study Leading to a Project Proposal in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Bachelor of

Science in Software Engineering of Makerere University

Supervisor

Odong Stephen

Department of Networks

School of Computing and Informatics Technology, Makerere University

sodong@cis.mak.ac.ug

September 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

1.0    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. Further more 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 to the Problem

Currently in most of the organizations in Uganda today, the process is like; some one 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. Further more, 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 some one enters a room and switching them off when some one 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.

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

1.3           Objectives

1.3.1    Main Objective

The main objective of this project is to reduce on the power consumption costs by automatically switching off lights and the air conditioner control when they are not required.

1.3.2        Other Objective

·         The other objective of this system is to ensure that the external lights to a building are only switched on during night and they are kept off during day.

·         This system is also 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.

·         The system will also be designed to ensure safety of personnel incase of AC failure and temperatures exceed the norm by triggering an alarm to notify people of the danger.

2.0    Methodology

The methodology used to achieve the stated objectives is to use an embedded system that will run on an arduino board that will control the other components like the PIR motion sensor to detect presence of human personnel in a room via infra-red radiations and a photo-resistor that will detect the darkness/light and switch lights on/off respectively in this case simulated using RGB LED CA lights. The embedded code will be written and run on an arduino micro-controller. Temperature will be monitored by the temperature sensor which will then display the temperature on an LCD, if temperatures are in excess the microcontroller should be in position to turn on the motor fan to start blowing and cool the temperature. The will also be use of a buzzer to alarm incase of high temperatures (in case of probability of AC failure - hardware inhibition) with intention to alert personnel of possible mayhem. The feasibility study and data collection will be carried out by visiting different premises of the different organizations and observing how their lighting system is designed and how their air conditioning systems work.

3.0    Outcomes

The out come of this project will be an Auto-Tech system that will ensure a reduction on the power consumption where by the lights and air conditioners in a given building will be automatically controlled with out any one having to keep watch and switching them on and off where necessary.

The other outcome of this system will be an improvement in the safety of the people incase of high temperatures (possibly as a result of fire).

4.0    References

[1] B. Klaus and P. Horn, Robot Vision. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.

[2] L. Stein, “Random patterns,” in Computers and You, J. S. Brake, Ed. New York: Wiley, 1994.

[3] Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Staff of Technology and Science, Aerospace Div.), Integrated Electronic Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970.

[4] HARSAPP. 2012. Available:https://sites.google.com/site/harsapp/concept-paper