Hello there!
I stated working on this project for a competition. Practical implementation of this project is bit tricky (challenging as well) but it very well demonstrates an idea for energy conservation.
Street lights, standing tall and brightening up dark nights, consume a massive amount of energy. The question is that is it actually necessary to light up these guys throughout the night? Give it a thought.
Excluding the express ways and highways, rest of the road do not witness much traffic at night. It can be said that these roads have almost negligible commuters. So using the street lights smartly is important which in turn will save considerable amount of energy.
Coming to the project!
This project consists of two parts:
1) Monitoring the traffic.
2) Operating the street lights accordingly.
Monitoring the TrafficI used a basic infrared led and receiver to track the vehicle movement on the road. An infrared led and a receiver are placed on either side of the road. Now when there are no vehicles the infrared led receives the infrared light emitted by the IR led. When a vehicle or commuter passes from the road there is change in the amount of light received by the receiver.
We use this principle to control the streetlights.
Operating the Street LightsWhen a change is detected on the IR sensors, the led lights (representing street lights) are turned on. To provide a better range of vision 8 street lights will be turned on with respect to the sensor (four of them ahead of the sensor and four at the back). This is important with safety point of view.
The code is very simple. An if condition activates the state of the street light based on the sensor values.
That's it. Have fun!
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