PROJECT PROPOSAL ON THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A

PROTOTYPE FOR A SMART HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEM USING ARDUINO

AND IOT SERVICES

INTRODUCTION

Home automation is the adoption of a system to control lighting, atmospheric conditions,

entertainment systems, surveillance systems, and home appliances. It allows for devices in

the home to be connected to a remotely controllable network. This technology makes life

easier for the user and saves energy by utilizing devices with the most priority and

importance. Controls can be made as easy as turning off lights with a remote or as complex as

setting up a network of items that can program a controller via smartphones from everywhere

in the world. It allows for devices in the home to be connected to a remotely controllable

network.

The idea of home automation has been around for decades, but only in recent times were

actual architectural designs being implemented. The earliest form of home automation dates

back to 1893 when the first television with a remote control system was patented. The

popularity of home automation grew afterward in the early 2000s due to an increase in the

demand for various technologies. The need for home automation has continued to increase as

more affordable domestic technologies emerge in the market today.

Home automation refers to the automatic and electronic control of household features,

activity, and appliances. In simple terms, it means you can easily control the utilities and

features of your home via the Internet to make life more convenient and secure, and even

spend less on household bills. Read on to find answers to some of the most common
questions about home automation technology, and get a few ideas for home automation

solutions to incorporate in your home.

HOW DOES HOME AUTOMATION WORK

Home automation is a network of hardware, communication, and electronic interfaces that

work to integrate everyday devices with one another via the Internet. Each device has sensors

and is connected through WiFi, so you can manage them from your smartphone or tablet

whether you’re at home, or miles away. This allows you to turn on the lights, lock the front

door, or even turn down the heat, no matter where you are.

ELEMENT OF A HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEM

There are three main elements of a home automation system: sensors, controllers, and

actuators.

Sensors can monitor changes in daylight, temperature, or motion detection. Home automation

systems can then adjust those settings (and more) to your preferences.

Controllers refer to the devices — personal computers, tablets or smartphones — used to

send and receive messages about the status of automated features in your home.

Actuators may be light switches, motors, or motorized valves that control the actual

mechanism, or function, of a home automation system. They are programmed to be activated

by a remote command from a controller.

FEATURES HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEMS OFFERS

Home automation systems offer a variety of services and functions. Some of the more

common features available through these platforms include:

 Fire and carbon monoxide monitoring

 Remote lighting control

 Thermostat control

 Appliance control

 Home automation security systems and cameras

 Live video surveillance

 Alarm systems

 Real-time text and email alerts

 Digital personal assistant integration

 Keyless entry

 Voice-activated control

BENEFITS OF HOME AUTOMATION

The purpose of a home automation system is to streamline how your home functions.

Consider some of these benefits:

Remote access: Control your home from mobile devices, including your laptop, tablet, or

smartphone.

Comfort: Use home automation to make your home a more comfortable, livable space. Pre-

program your thermostat with your preferred settings so that your home is always at a

comfortable temperature, set up smart speakers to play music when you get home from work,

or adjust your lights to soften or brighten based on the time of day.

Convenience: Program devices to turn on automatically at certain times, or access their

settings remotely from anywhere with an Internet connection. When you don’t have to

remember to lock the door behind you or switch off the lights, you can turn your attention to

more important things.

Increased safety: Smart fire detectors, carbon monoxide monitors, pressure sensors, and

other home automation security features can help protect your home from disaster.

Energy efficiency: Home automation allows you to be more mindful of your power usage.

For example, you can save on energy bills by reducing the length of time that lights stay on,

or by lowering temperatures when you leave a room.

PROBLEM STATEMENTS

Home Automation in reduces the need for direct human intervention when it comes to

managing home appliances and lightings. The benefits of a home is numerous and it is

normally design to meet the user’s requirement. Home automation devices can be installed

for the purpose of managing all of your home devices from one place, to give a remote

control access of home functions, maximize home security or increase energy efficiency. For

either of the aforementioned features, home automation enhances convenience in any home.

AIM OF THIS PROPOSED WORK

The aim of this proposal is to design and implement a prototype which depicts a miniaturised

version of a smart home with some specific automation features.

OBJECTIVES
Objectives of this study are as follows,

 To carry out research and review previous works on home automation systems

 To come up with an appropriate design and a clear methodology for a home automation

system

 To select suitable components for the design and a proper implementation method

 To construct and implement the design

 To test and carry our result analysis on the constructed work

DESIGN METHODOLOGY

The propose design ensures the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed Smart Home

Automation System.

BLOCK DIAGRAM

The figure shows a block diagram describing the interaction between the various subsystems

making up the system.

Fig1 Block diagram

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

The proposed design includes the following blocks; The Control Unit, The remote user

interface block, a cloud based server, Wi-Fi module block, the Display block, the local user

interface block, Sensors Block, Control terminals for Lightings, Control terminals for socket

outlets and the Door locking system as shown in fig 3.1. Each of these blocks discussed

below.

CONTROL UNIT

At the heart of this design will be an Arduino – Uno module running at the speed of 16MHz.

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software.

Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter

message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing

something online. We program the Arduino Board by sending a set of instructions to the

microcontroller on the board. To do so you use the Arduino programming language (based on

Wiring), and the Arduino Software (IDE).

Arduino also simplifies the process of working with microcontrollers, but it offers some

advantage for teachers, students, and interested amateurs over other systems. Arduino boards

are relatively inexpensive compared to other microcontroller platforms. The Arduino

Software (IDE) runs on Windows, Macintosh OSX, and Linux operating systems. Most

microcontroller systems are limited to Windows. The Arduino Software (IDE) is easy-to-use

for beginners, yet flexible enough for advanced users to take advantage of as well. For

teachers, it's conveniently based on the Processing programming environment, so students

learning to program in that environment will be familiar with how the Arduino IDE works.
The Arduino software is published as open source tools, available for extension by

experienced programmers.

Fig 2 Arduino

REMOTE USER-INTERFACE BLOCK

This block simply describes the platform where the end user can get access and adequate

control and monitoring of the proposed home automation system from remote locations. A

Website or An Android app will be deployed to ensure easy and secure access to the smart

home control system.

Fig 3 Phone, Tab and PC

CLOUD BASED SERVER

A cloud server is powerful physical or virtual infrastructure that performs application- and

information-processing storage. Cloud servers are created using virtualization software to

divide a physical (bare metal) server into multiple virtual servers. Organizations use an

infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model to process workloads and store information. They can

access virtual server functions remotely through an online interface. The ThingSpeak web

platform services will be deployed for the web data storage from the smart home.

ThingSpeak is an IoT analytics platform service that allows you to aggregate, visualize, and

analyse live data streams in the cloud. We can send data to ThingSpeak from your devices,

create instant visualization of live data, and send alerts.

Fig 4 Cloud based Storage

WIFI MODULE BLOCK

This block consist of an ESP8266 wifi module with an high speed internet access. The

ESP8266 WiFi Module is a self contained SOC with integrated TCP/IP protocol stack that

can give any microcontroller access to your WiFi network. The ESP8266 is capable of either

hosting an application or offloading all Wi-Fi networking functions from another application

processor. Each ESP8266 module comes pre-programmed with an AT command set

firmware, meaning, we can easily hook this module up to your Arduino device and get about

as much WiFi-ability as a WiFi Shield offers. The ESP8266 module is an extremely cost

effective board with a huge, and ever growing, community of users.

Fig 5 ESP8266

DISPLAY BLOCK

The Display block describes an output interface in which the user can locally get feedback

from the home control system. This feedback will be displayed on a 16 characters by 2 rows

liquid crystal display screen. A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other

electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid

crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly, instead using a

backlight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome. LCDs are available to

display arbitrary images (as in a general-purpose computer display) or fixed images with low

information content, which can be displayed or hidden.

Fig 6 16x2 LCD Screen

LOCAL USER INTERFACE

This block simply describes a platform where the user can get access, adequate control and

monitoring of the proposed home automation system from within the premises of the home. It

majorly includes a 4 x 4 matrix keypad in which the user can use to navigate through options

and controls in the home.

Fig 7 Keypad
SENSORS BLOCK

This Block Cost of an IR proximity sensor and the passive infrared sensor for security breach

detection and power consumption optimisation respectively. IR Proximity sensor detects

presence around the premises of the house and sends signals to the control unit. The PIR

sensor is used to detect human presence in the different rooms in the home and send

occupancy data signals to the control unit who will turn off lights in the appropriate vacant

rooms to avoid energy wastage.

Fig 8 IR proximity sensor and PIR

CONTROL TERMINAL FOR LIGHTINGS

This block simply describe the use of transistors and relay to automatically switch on and of

lights in the home based on the controller signals.

Fig 9 Relay module for controlling lights

CONTROL TERMINAL FOR SOCKETS

This block simply describe the use of transistors and relay to automatically switch on and of

sockets in the home based on the controller signals.

Fig 10 Relay module for socket outlets

DOOR LOCKING SYSTEM

An automatic door locking mechanism for the prototype design for this system will be

achieved by using servo motors which in turn is attached to doors and can open and close

whenever they are actuated.

Fig 11 Servo Motor

PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION

The proposed idea towards this smart home automation system is such that the user can turn

on lights, Sockets and lock doors with the use of a smart phone when he is not within the

premises of the home, and more so he can control these same functions from a single user

interface point while within the home. Security breach detection and power optimisation are

added features.

The control unit receives signals from the users input interface both the remote (Phone App,

via Wi-Fi module) and locally (via the keypad terminal) and processes these signals, it then

switches on/off the required lighting point or locks/opens the required door. A proximity

sensor is used to detect when there is a security breach and will send signals to the control

unit in the event of such occurrence. The Control unit will lock all doors and notify the user’s

phone via the Wi-Fi module and also through the display screen. A passive infrared sensor is

used to detect human presence in each rooms, in the case of no such presence found, it

signals the control unit to turn of lights and sockets, the aim of this is to minimise energy

wastage.

A cloud based server acts as a data storage support system so that the user can access

information pertaining to the smart home and also control home remotely.

IMPLEMENTATION
The implementation of this design gives an insight to the outward appearance of the device,

the physical design stages and the type materials used both internally and externally in the

design implementation. To minimise the high cost of physically implementing this design

into an actual home, a prototype will be constructed to depict the details of this proposed

work.

A dummy house (a miniaturised version of a house) will be constructed using ply boards and

other wooden framework and all the required components for the home automation system

will be installed on this dummy house.

PROPOSED APPEARANCE
Fig 12 Outward appearance

MATERIALS REQUIRED

Metals such as wood and aluminium will be majorly used in the outer and inner parts of the

dummy house set up respectively. Other materials like plastic and rubber are also used.