2014 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT)

Solar Panel and Battery Street Light

Monitoring System
Using GSM Wireless Communication System
Simon Siregar Duddy Soegiarto
Telkom Applied Science School Telkom Applied Science School
Telkom University Telkom University
Bandung, Indonesia Bandung, Indonesia
simon.siregar@tass.telkomuniversity.ac.id duddysu@telkomuniversity.ac.id

Abstract The use of of single power solar system in Radio Frequency communications, GSM Communication
generation of electricity for streetlights nowdays is widely used. System, and GPRS communication system. [3]
Generally, many of this kind of streetlight is using one solar The method of communication that will be used in this
panel system to power its lamp. The problem that can be arise for research is using of GSM communication system to monitor
this kind of streetlight is how to control and guarantee the
the performance of the streetlight.
optimal system [1]. The use of ACS712 current sensor and
voltage sensor using voltage divider circuit with GSM
communication system allows to monitor [2] both the battery and
the solar panel. The information from the current sensor and
voltage sensor then processed by a microcontroller. This
microcontroller then send the data through a GSM
communication system to a server, via short message service
(SMS). This server then processed the data by parsing the
information from the SMS, and send the data to a web server
database. This information then can be accessed by internet. The
expected outcome of this monitoring system is a system that can
be used in monitoring small solar power plants system as the
street lights.

Index Terms sensor, monitoring system; ACS712; GSM

Communication System. Figure 1 General setup for streetlight solar panel system (Anern.com)

I. INTRODUCTION In general, as shown in figure 1, street lights using solar

Lighting system using solar power system in public sector,
has been widely used. Recent research shows that there was
several method to monitor this lighting system. Such as, using
Zig Bee, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Most of this wireless
technology can only monitored with distance between 10 m to
100 m. [1]
Many countries, especially toll roads, street lights installed
along the highway, with a range for kilometers. How to
monitor and control the performance of the street lights to be
one of the problems in the highway services.
There are several possible solutions. First, street lights
using Zig Bee, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication types, the
distance problem can be solved by building several small
servers every few hundred meters, then continue through other
communication lines. Constraint that may arise is, a small
number of servers that must be observed is still a lot.
Second, replace the lines of communication to monitor the
lamp with other communication media. Such as the use of
energy, consisting of a battery, LED lights, and a controller.
The sensors will be installed between the solar panel and the
controller and between the battery and the controller. By
knowing the condition of current and voltage between the
solar panel and battery, the monitoring system can tell the
condition-performing monitoring of street lighting.
II. GENERAL CONCEPT OF THE SYSTEM
The system is constructed in this study consists of three
parts, namely: client, server, and a communication system.
A. Client Street light Monitoring System
Client, in accordance with figure 2, from the monitoring
system of solar street light consists of a solar street light
components (lights, controller, solar panel and battery),
connected with voltage and current sensors. Data from voltage
and current sensors is then sent and processed in the
microcontroller.

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 2014 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT)

A. Client.
Solar Panel Controller Battery On the client side, the components used are: a sensor
ACS712 current sensor, voltage sensor using a voltage divider
Voltage and Voltage and
circuit, microcontroller ATmega 328, Wavecom Fastrack
LED Lamp Q2403A modem (GSM communication systems modem). The
Current Current
Sensor Sensor communication between microcontroller and modem is, by
using the command AT command.
Street Light
Monitoring Microcontroler
B. Server
System CLIENT On the server side, the components used are: Huawei E173
Figure 2 Client - Street Light Monitoring System modem, which is compatible with Gammu (SMS Gateway
application), a server, with Gammu application and Web
B. Server Street light Monitoring System Server (Apache).
Server, according to figure 3, this section consists of SMS
gateway, web server and Internet. The Short Message Service Solar Panel
Voltage sensor :
(SMS) is based on out-of-band message delivery, which Voltage Divider CLIENT SERVER
22v to 5 v GSM Communication
permits users to send and receive text messages to/from their System

mobile phones [4]. The SMS Gateway will receive all the Solar Panel
Microcontroller
Modem :
Modem :
Server
Current sensor : Wavecom (Gammu,
information, in this case in the form of SMS, sent by the ACS712
Atmega 328
Fastrack Q2403a
Huawei E173
Apache, PHP)

client. Any data received and processed by the SMS gateway Battery
and sent it to the Web server. With this web server, then the Voltage sensor
Voltage Divider
information on the client, street lights, can be accessed 14v to 5 v Street Light Monitoring System
anywhere via the Internet.[5]
a Web server is to store information and serve client requests.
The purpose of
a Web server is to stor e information and serve clien t requests.

Figure 5 Implementation of monitoring system using GSM communication

system

IV. SYSTEM FLOW CHART

After you have configured in accordance with the concept,
then the programming is done on the client side and the server.
SMS Gateway Web Server Internet

Start Start
Street Light Monitoring System SERVER
Figure 3 Server - Street Light Monitoring System
Read data from Receive data from
voltage and current modem
sensor (Huawei E173)
C. Communication Street light Monitoring System
Communication, consisting of Client, Server, and modem.
Each modem in each section serves to send and receive SMS Process the data in
on solar panels and battery information. The modem will work Microcontroller
(Atmega 328)
on GSM communication system as shown in figure 4.
SMS Gateway do
Autoreply and
GSM Communication processing data
System Send processed data
to Modem
CLIENT SERVER (Wavecom Fastrack
Q2403a)
Modem Modem

Update Web Server

Wavecom Fastrack database (can be
Street Light Monitoring System Q2403a send SMS accessed from
internet)
Figure 4 Server - Street Light Monitoring System

END END
III. IMPLEMENTATION
CLIENT SERVER
In the implementation, according to figure 5, the following
components are used in client and server. Figure 6 Flowchart of monitoring system on client and server side

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 2014 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT)

A. Client position being charged and not. When the position reaches
On the client side, ATmega microcontroller 328 is 14.5 volts, the voltage stops rising and begins to fall (stop
programmable component. Software that is used to program charging), and begin to charge when the volt touched to 12.5
the microcontroller is Arduino. While the command that is volts.
used to send data from microcontroller to modem Q2403A
Wavecom Fastrack is the AT command. Flowchart system that
programmed into the ATmega328 and implementation of the
system can be seen in figure 6 on the client side and figure 7.
Solar Panel Controller Battery

Solar
Panel
Voltage Battery
Sensor Voltage
ACS712
Sensor Figure 9 Experiment result of voltage sensor of solar panel (blue) and voltage
Current
sensor of battery (brown)
Sensor
Figure 8 shows the condition of the current generated by
the solar panels. When the sun is bright, the current will rise in
accordance with the applied load, in this case the load is
ATmega 328 (Arduino R3) Wavecom Fastrack charging battery. However the flow of current will remain
low, when there is no load. When it's in raining condition,
Figure 7 Implementation of the system on client side which dims the sunlight, the resulting flow of current is also
low, even in the loaded condition. Its mean there is not
B. Server enough current to charge the battery.
On server side, programming includes configuration of
Gammu SMS Gateway application, which is needed in order
that the server could work with Huawei E731 modem, the
installation of the Apache (Web Server), and the making of
PHP applications, in order to display street lights information
on the Internet. Flowchart system and implementation of the
system on server side can be seen in figure 6 on the server side
and figure 8.
Huawei E173 Server Acer Veriton

Figure 10 Experiment result of current sensor of solar panel

Figure 8 Implementation of the system on client side
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
Figure 7 and 8, are the results from the experiment that the
monitoring system. Here are the parameters of the tests
performed: Time testing was conducted from 8 am to 5 pm,
SMS sending time interval is every 5 minutes, weather
conditions which are observed in the test are sunny and rainy
conditions.
Figure 7 shows the condition of the solar panels (blue)
generates a voltage up to 22 volts and then drops when the
rain fell. After some time it climbed back to 22 volts after the
rain stop. As for the battery (brown), Figure 7 shows the
CONCLUSION
From the experimental results in this research, it can be
concluded, that the monitoring system of the solar panel and
the battery can be run in accordance with the design.
There are several suggestion that can be built in the
development of this system, such as : build the system using
GPRS communication and add a few other sensors such as
Global Positioning System (GPS)
.
REFERENCES
[1] Z. L. Fabio Leccese, Intelligent wireless street lighting system,
Venice, Environment and Electrical Engineering (EEEIC), 2012,
pp. 958 - 961.
[2] B. S. P. a. R. G. A. M. M. Harish Ramamurthy, Wireless
Industrial Monitoring and Control using a Smart Sensor
Platform, IEEE Sensor Journal, 2007.

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 2014 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT)

[3] R. Caponetto, G. Dongola, L. Fortuna, N. Riscica dan D.

Zufacchi, Power consumption reduction in a remote controlled
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[4] R. C. R. S. Alberto Gonzalez Prieto, Policy-based Congestion
Management for an SMS Gateway, New York, Proceedings of
IEEE 5th International Workshop on Policies for Distributed
Systems and Networks (POLICY), 2004.
[5] M. C. P. S. Y. Valeria Cardellini, Dynamic Load Balancing on
Web-server Systems, IEEE Internet Computing, 1999, pp. 28-
39.

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