Published May 19, 2018

Auto_Power_Controller(APC)

An IoT device to automatically switch on/off electronic appliances based on the availability of human beings, especially in public services.

IntermediateProtip6 hours4,340

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Jumper wires (generic)

9V battery (generic)

Resistor 221 ohm

Relay (generic)

PIR Motion Sensor (generic)

Arduino UNO

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Hot glue gun (generic)

Story

Implementation Scenario(s) for Auto Power Controller:

Public Services Department and other government premises are the places where there are large numbers of human beings move around often. When people are available in a specified area, electronic appliances like fans, lights and nowadays air-conditioners are turned on for the ease of living.

There are many sub-departments in Public Services like railways, buses, museums, libraries and so on. All the officials of those departments were allocated specific rooms inside the premises.

Rooms belonging to the specific departments and at the places inside the premises where people are surrounded with are well-equipped with electronic appliances. The appliances once turned on at the start time are switched off only after the end-time. And between the start and end times, it is not always human-beings are present on the rooms/premises. People might wander around the premises for monitoring, etc.

When the officials or public leave the rooms, they may not get the thought of switching off the appliances. And it is wise to automatically turn on/off the electronic appliances based on the presence of human beings in specified area, especially on the premises of the Public Services.

There are witnessed use-cases, where people are not available in the rooms for more than an hour or so, but electronic appliances are Turned On, till they return back to the room (or) till the end-time.

Auto Power Controller – Technology Stack:

Auto Power Controller is designed in such a way, to automatically switch on and off the Electronic appliances at Government Premises based on sensing of the availability of human beings. This approach will definitely result in reduced power consumption at public service departments like Railways, Government Office Premises, Libraries, and Museums and so on.

Net Savings = Number of Units of Power-saving * Rate per unit of power (determined by the Power Supplier)

PIR Sensor

Microprocessor Unit

PCB Relay 5v

Resistor 220ohm (any resistor below 1k ohm)

Battery (5-9V)

Connecting wires

Humidity sensor could also be connected in parallel, in order to observe the external climatic temperature and program the appliances to Turn/Off based on its input. Thus more common Electronic appliances like Light and Fans will auto turn on/off based on the external climate at the Offices of the Public Services departments.

Many Sensors across the premises can be connected to a Single Processor, making it as main controller for the network of all electronic appliances achieving, Automatic Power Control on the premises.

By this approach, it will result in power saving and thus cost reduction on the working expenses of the Departments of the Public Services.

To the first step of this design, Automation could be adopted to a specific department of the Government and observe the result, later then expand the same to other departments too.

Code

Auto_Power_Controller

int ledPin = 13; // choose the pin for the LED
int inputPin = 2; // choose the input pin (for PIR sensor)
int pirState = LOW; // we start, assuming no motion detected
int val = 0; // variable for reading the pin status

void setup() {
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // declare LED as output
pinMode(inputPin, INPUT); // declare sensor as input

Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
val = digitalRead(inputPin); // read input value
if (val == HIGH) { // check if the input is HIGH
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // turn LED ON
if (pirState == LOW) {
// we have just turned on
Serial.println("Motion detected!");
// We only want to print on the output change, not state
pirState = HIGH;
}
} else {
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // turn LED OFF
if (pirState == HIGH){
// we have just turned of
Serial.println("Motion ended!");
// We only want to print on the output change, not state
pirState = LOW;
}
}
}

Credits

Revathi Kannan

2 projects • 13 followers

Application Developer : A| - BlockChain - Mainframes - Vision plus expertise - IBM Watson - IBM Code Challenge Winner 2018 (Top 3/India)