15th international conference on Sciences and Techniques of Automatic control
& computer engineering - STA'2014, Hammamet, Tunisia, December 21-23, 2014
Remote control of a domestic equipment from an Android application
based on Raspberry pi card
Hayet Lamine
Department Technology Informatics of ISET of Sfax
High Institute of technology’s studies of sfax, (ISET Sfax)
Sfax, Tunisia
lamine_hayet@yahoo.fr
Abstract—In this paper, we propose a Remote control of a
domestic equipment from an Android application based on
Raspberry pi card. Home automation has been recalled in the
first stage. In the second stage an application has been developed
based on the android system. The different diagrams have been
presented. Different codes have been developed to allow the
communication between the remote user, the web server, the
raspberry pi card and the home components. Also an interface
card has been developed to assure the communication between
the home components and raspberry pi card. The application has
been installed on a Smartphone, a web server and a raspberry pi
card to order the shutter of windows. The experimental results
are successful.
Keywords—Android system, Web server, Raspberry pi card,
Electronic components.
I. INTRODUCTION
Home automation includes all electronic components,
building physics, middle ware, informatics technology and
telecommunications used in buildings, more or less
"interoperable" and to centralize the control of different
systems and subsystems of the house and company (heating,
shutters, garage door, entrance gate, electrical outlets, etc.) [1],
[2]. Home automation has been developed to provide technical
solutions to meet the comfort needs such that energy
management, optimization of lighting and heating. Home
automation could be improved through an amelioration of
communication network that uses a pair of twisted lines, radio
signals, or fiber optics in a bus-based network or an internet
protocol as standards. The main contribution of this paper is to
implement an electronic card which can control, through the
Internet under the android environment, household equipment
such as air conditioning, heating. The application consists to
develop programs that allow communication between a remote
user using a smartphone, a web server and raspberry pi card
that communicates with one or more interface cards to control
the equipment in the home. This paper is organized as follows:
Section 2 recalls the home automation. The section 3 describes
remote control example of domestic equipment from an
Android application.
II. HOME AUTOMATION
Home automation is an electrical system that enables
communication with remote controls or buttons to make the
control of the house easier. They are used to control a simple
gesture one or more actions (Examples: lower heating, lighting
adjustment, lowering motorized shutters ...). A home
978-1-4799-5906-8/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
STA'2014-PID3518-SIS
Hafedh Abid
Department Electrical of ENIS
Laboratory of Sciences and Techniques of Automatic &
computer engineering (Lab-STA) Sfax, Tunisia
abidhafedh@gmail.com
automation application requires for its operation, able to
capture information and operate a subsequent order. For this,
we must be able to transfer information between different
devices. The system allows programming of automatic sources
of comfort and safety of energy saving: the automatic opening
and closing of the shutters, automatic watering depending on
the climate, lighting management based on the presence and
brightness, etc. The home automation system includes three
main compoments which are:
• Controller / Control Interface: as a monitor, computer, or
phone, for example, that can give orders to units that one
wishes to control (program, parameterize)
• A mode of transmission: wired connections (example
Ethernet), radio waves, infrared, etc.
• An apparatus as an electrical outlet, a lamp or a heater,
which is compatible with the transmission mode, and
connected to the control system.
Although smart tools have been accessible in the past, their
use has been very limited because they require
intercommunication. One suggested solution is to connect all
smart devices using hard electric wiring [3]; however, the
resulting portability problem then produces an order for a
wireless network able of accepting the devices. Organizations
have therefore developed management, supplementary
services, and gateways for smart devices [3]. Smart home
network technology has been installed in various systems,
such as power line and radio frequency systems [4].
III. REMOTE CONTROL EXAMPLE OF DOMESTIC EQUIPMENT
FROM AN ANDROID APPLICATION:
We offer the example of a system for controlling a remote
shutter, using a "Raspberry pi" card for receiving commands
from an Android application on mobile phone. Our electronic
system is composed of a "Raspberry pi" card for receipt of
commands sent by the user and according to the order nature,
the card will raise or lower the electric shutter. The
implementation of this system requires:
- The Programming of a Raspberry pi card capable of
receiving commands (orders) sent by a remote user to raise or
lower an electric shutter linked with this card.
- The development of a mobile application "Android" in
order to control our system.
The solution that we present can also be adopted for other
equipment such as lamps, air conditioners…
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A. Solution Overview
The following diagram (Fig. 1) illustrates the components
of the system, and the interactions between them.
Fig. 1. Solution overview schema
For the design of our system, we used the Unified
Modeling Langage (UML).
1) Representation of use case diagrams:
a) The actors
There are four actors: the main actor is the remote user,
two secondary actors which are the web service and the
"Raspberry pi" card, the fourth is an external actor : user
manual.
• Remote User: this actor has the right to control the
shutter from its Android application and remotely using his
mobile phone.
• Raspberry pi card: this actor will access every X seconds
to the database to verify the existence of a new order “open /
close” saved.
• Web Service: its role is to register the commands from
the remote user in the database, retrieve the current state of the
shutter, and return a failure / success message under the JSON
as a response on the commands performed by the user.
• Manual user: This actor will open or close the shutter
manually.
b) General use cases:
Fig. 2. General use cases
Authenticate: allows the user to access the application after
entering his login and password.
Remotely control shutter: allows the remote user to control
the remote shutter, he can bring them up or down.
c) Use case of "Remote order shutter":
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Fig. 3. Use case of "Remote order shutter"
Remote open shutter: allows the remote user to open the
shutter remotely.
Remote close shutter: allows the remote user to close the
shutter remotely.
See current status: allows the remote user to see the current
state of the shutter to perform the correct order.
Register command: Saves the “open / close” order in the
database with state = 0.
Check order status: to check the status of the command
stored in the base just after recording, and in this state a failure
/ success message is returned.
Return message: allows you to return a success message or
fails after checking the status of the order recorded, if
successful this message confirms that the command sent by
the user has been made (the state of the order was changed
from 0 to -1), on failure this message confirms that the
command sent by the user was failed (status of the order has
left = 0 after verification).
Recuperate current status: Retrieve the current state of the
shutter, otherwise the last command has performed with
success is the current state of the shutter.
d) Use case of subsystem Raspberry pi:
Fig. 4. Use case of subsystem Raspberry pi
Check new order: Checks every x seconds, if there is a
new command for opening / closing recorded in the database
with status = 0 (new orders awaiting processing), depending
on the nature of the order (open / close), the card will open or
close the shutter.
Open the shutter: to raise the shutter.
Close the shutter: to bring down the shutter.
Modify shutter state: change the status of the last new
command retrieved to -1 (command completed successfully)
after closing or opening the shutter successfully.
 Save manual order: Saves the manual control opening or
closing in the database with the nature of the control (open /
close), its date, and with a status = -1 (command completed
successfully) .
Open manual shutter: Allows the manual user to open the
shutter manually.
Close manual shutter: Allows the manual user to close the
shutter manually.
2) The class diagram:
Fig. 5. The class diagram
3) Sequences diagrams
a) Sequence diagram of "Remote open shutter"
Fig. 6. Sequence diagram of "Remote open shutter"
b) Sequence diagram of subsystem "Raspberry pi" card
Fig. 7. Sequence diagram of subsystem "Raspberry pi" card
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4) Transition-state diagram
Fig. 8. Transition-state diagram
The diagram above shows the different states of a
command: the state « On hold » when the control (open /
close) sent by the user is waiting for treatment, the state
« performed » when the command is successful, and the state
« failed » when it is impossible to carry out the control of the
user.
5) Activity diagram :
Fig. 9. Activity diagram
B. Proposed technologies for the programming part :
1) Architecture at three levels (3-tiers)
Fig. 10. Architecture at three levels (3-tiers)
The architecture we adopted for our application (side:
Android application, web service and database) is the three-
tier architecture, which is a stack of three levels: The
presentation of data (Level 1), Treatment business data (Level
2) and access to persistent data (Level 3).
2) Two-tier architecture (2-tier):
Fig. 11. Two-tier architecture (2-tier)
 We have used this architecture side « Raspberry pi » card
and the database.
3) The REST architecture:
REST (Representational State Transfer) is a type of
architecture that is used more and more to make a web service.
It is not precisely defined by a standard. REST is based on
requests transmitted by standard protocols (http, ftp,...), it
often returns a file in XML or JSON format.
4) JSON:
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a data structure
format. The data are considered as objects with properties and
sub-properties. This formalism is close enough is based on
XML and JavaScript. Fig. 13. The inputs / outputs of the Raspberry pi card

5) MySQL: We also offer an electronic interface card which provides

MySQL is a relational database management system
(RDBMS). It is distributed under a dual GPL and proprietary
license. It is one of the database management software most
used in the world.
C. Proposed solution for the hardware part:
The solution that we have adopted consists of the
communication between the "Raspberry pi" card and the
shutter. This card allows one hand to operate two relays in a
well-designed combination (where the outputs of the
Raspberry pi card (GPIO) are activated) to rotate the engine
each time in one direction and the other, to offer the user
manual two struts push to open or close his shutter manually.
PH V1 N

exploitation of the Raspberry pi card. It is a single nano- Motor

computer card ARM processor designed by designer David VCC/VDD

220 V

RL3
Braben video games, as part of its foundation "Raspberry pi". NTE-R22-5
PH V1 N
The following photo presents the Raspberry pi card : Enternet R1 Q1
2N3392
10k VCC/VDD
220 V

RL4

Isolation and Adaptation card

NTE-R22-5
I/O M AP RASBERY

R1 Q1
2N3392
10k
Sensor

GND 1/0

VCC/VDD

RL1
NTE-R22-5

Lamp
R2 Q1
2N3392
10k V1

220 V

GND

Fig. 14. Basis of interface card

D. The Android Client and Extract codes:

1) The Android client:

Fig. 12. The Raspberry pi card

This computer has the size of a credit card, allows the

execution of several variants of the free operating system
GNU / Linux and compatible software. It is supplied bare
(single motherboard, without housing, power supply,
keyboard, mouse and screen) with the aim to reduce costs and
enable the use of recovery equipment. Around the central part, Fig. 15. Navigation diagram
there are different connectors for connecting devices to
interact with the computer. In this section there are some interfaces of our Android
The range of connections offered by the "Raspberry pi" application.
card is given by the following figure:

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 First, the user is prompted to enter his login and password
in order to use the application, in case the internet connection
is not present, an error message is displayed to invite him to
check its connection internet. If there is not a connection
problem, “Please wait” message appears, in this case the
system checks the validity of the login and password, if they Fig. 18. The shutter current state
are incorrect, an error message invites him to check them.
After authenticate correctly, the user is redirected to the
main interface (Fig. 16) where it can choose « Help » to see
the instructions to know more information about the
application, or command its shutter (Fig. 17).
Fig. 19. Successful opening

When the user tries to open its shutters already open, a

message appears to warn him that his shutter is already open,
and the same for the closure.
2) Extract code of the activity component command
button:
For the development of the Android application we used
the tool Bundle ADT (Android Developer Tools), which is the
complete package and recommended to start project
development "Android". It embeds Eclipse, the ADT plugin
pre-installed and the Android SDK.
Fig. 16. Main interface
package com.domotique;
// import ….
public class Commandshutter extends Activity {
private Button btnOpen;
private Button btnClose;
…
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_command_shutter);
main();
}
private void main() {
btnOpen= (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnOpen);
Fig. 17. Shutter order interface
btnClose = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnClose);
This interface provides the user the ability to control its cd = new
shutter: ConnectionDetector(getApplicationContext());
recuperateState();
By pressing the ON button, the user can open the shutter. addListener();}
Pressing the OFF button, the user can close the shutter. …..
private void addListener () {
By accessing this interface a window showing the current btnOpen.setOnClickListener(new
state of the shutter, and based on this state the user will choose OnClickListener() {
either to raise or descend its shutter (Fig. 18). public void onClick(View v) {
In cases where the internet connection is not present, an // verify internet connection
error message is displayed to invite him to check his internet ….
connection. if (testAction.equals("Open"))
{
For each order « opening / closing » the user receives a
success or failure response (Fig. 19). Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), " the shutter is
already open ", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show(); }
« Please wait » message is displayed to the user while else {
waiting for the response. myTaskOuvrir m = new myTaskOuvrir();
m.execute(); }
}
else { …..}

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 } change the state of this command to -1 (that is to say
}); command completed successfully).
….} //library gpio
Note: myTaskOuvrir is a class type AsyncTask
import com.pi4j.io.gpio…..
(Asynchronous task). It allows for asynchronous tasks. In our
//To open the shutter
case, it will be responsible for displaying the « Please wait »
message, recover the value of the HTTP request sent by the // create gpio controller
client (example « Open »), preparing the response as JSON final GpioController gpio = GpioFactory.getInstance();
(example « The shutter is opening successfully »), and finally // provision gpio pin #01 as an output pin and turn on
reveal the response as is shown in Fig. 19. final GpioPinDigitalOutput pin =
gpio.provisionDigitalOutputPin(RaspiPin.GPIO_01,
3) Extract code to command shutter (open) in the REST "MyLED", PinState.HIGH);
Web Service: // turn off gpio pin #01
We used the PHP language to develop the web service and pin.low();
the XAMPP to test it on the local network before the host on
the Internet. IV. CONCLUSION
function api_post($var) This work deals with smart home. The remote control
{ includes software and hardware components such as web
switch ($var) server, smart phone, Raspberry pi card and an interface card.
{ Many codes have been developed and stored in the web
case ("Open") : server, smart phone and the raspberry pi card. An interface
card has been realized to update signals between the actuator
….
sensors and the raspberry pi card. The application has been
$conn = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass);
installed and tested. This work can be generalized to remote
… command of multiple domestic equipments. In addition, it
$sql = 'INSERT INTO ordershutter '. may be more autonomous, more practice, and quite scalable
'(nat_comm,date_comm) '. saw the giant step and progress in the areas of technology and
'VALUES ( "Open", NOW() )'; communication in our time.
…
sleep(7);
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In case there is a new command (open / close) registered,
this application allows one hand to perform the processing of
the order, and also to re-access the database after treatment to

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