Embedded Ventilation Air Conditioning System for
Protection Purposes with IoT Control
Moath Awawdeh , Anees Bashir, Tarig Faisal*, Khawla Alhammadi, Mouza Almansori, and Sara Almazrouei
Faculty of Engineering, Madinat Zayed and Ruwais-Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE,
*tfaisal@hct.ac.ae
Abstract— A smart Embedded Ventilation, Air
Conditioning (EVAC) system is designed to produce a fully
automated protection system. The proposed system aims to
integrate air conditioning, ventilation, smoke extraction and
protection system all together into a single smart embedded
system that would contribute considerably to enhance
protection and provides early warning for proactive safety
solution in case of unpredictable indoor fire and smoke danger.
Arduino integrated development environment and IoT
platforms are used to accomplish the system by the mean of
using sensors and control application. The system is equipped
with smoke and temperature sensors to detect gases and high
temperature; when the readings exceed the threshold value, the
system automatically switch off the air conditioning system, run
the smoke extraction fans, and flash series of warnings following
a protection protocol simultaneously. The procedural
description of the proposed system along with the prototype
model is described in this paper. Testing results are shown by
means of experimental reading and verification.
Keywords—smart systems; IoT; Ventilation system,
Arduino, sensor-based alarming.
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the main reason of fatality caused by indoor fire
is smoke inhalation. Smoke inhalation can cause severe
respiratory complications. The US National Fire Protection
Association (NFPA) reported the existence of the functioning
smoke alarms impacted the reduction of the death cases in
home fires by less than half per 100 homes, fires from 2009
to 2013. 0.53 and 1.18 deaths reported in home fires for
houses with and without working smoke alarms, respectively
[1]. In the first half of 2017 the Civil Defense Centers in
United Arab Emirate (UAE) reported 928 fires that broke out
in buildings with 12 dead and 115 injured. It has been also
reported that the main factors for the success of a fire
emergency system are the qualified firefighters, timely
response to fire accidents, implementation of new fire
prevention technology, and public awareness programs
against risks of fires [2]. On the other hand, the inhalation of
the toxic fumes produced by highly flammable synthetic fiber
and plastics caused most of the fire-related fatalities.
Abu Dhabi Civil Defense General Directory is leading
many initiatives and strategies towards decreasing fire
accidents in UAE, as reported by Gulf News September,
2016. The UAE recorded 0.023 deaths per 10,000 people
between 2010-2014, which puts it ahead of many advanced
countries like United States, United Kingdom, and France in
fire accident rate [3].
Smoke detectors and fire alarm systems are vital in order
to reduce the number of fire related accidents and causalities.
Installing these devices has considerably helped in saving
This work is supported by Higher College of Technology (HCT) and
Emirate foundation under the program of think Science Fair 2017, UAE.
978-1-5386-4844-5/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: Higher College of Technology. Downloaded on September 26,2021 at 14:27:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
lives and reducing the injuries and losses to human lives and
their properties.
The above mentioned statistics have been the main
motivating factors behind the design of the system, which
would be beneficial in constraining accidental injuries and
human life losses and property destruction. The timely
response to fire accident, in emergency system reduces the
chances of causality and damages [4]. Thus, proposing a
warning and procedural protocol where the early detection of
a smoke and auto broadcasting of warning message to the
response team, contributes to decrease in the number of
injuries from fire and inhalation accidents [5].
The other motivation area is the idea of attaching an
extracting fan to the air conditioning system with
predetermined working points where both are working under
some conditions in which safety and protection are
considered [6]. This design could help in saving lives, where
many inhalation accidents injuries were recorded since the
number one cause of death related to fires is smoke
inhalation. The adopted wp-0arning protocol with early
smoke detection and auto switching system between the air
conditioner and extractor fans, mainly ensures that people are
aware of danger, fire response team is informed quickly, and
smoke is extracted from the area.
II. RELATED WORK
Many techniques have been developed over the recent
few years for the ventilation of smoking rooms and for
introducing different pathways for the smoke migration. It
has also been planned to isolate the smoking room and
embedded it with a strong exhaust system with carbon active
filters and ductworks; a design has been introduced in [7].
Certain conditions have to be followed when designing the
ventilation duct for air conditioning system, the frame has to
be constructed out of materials that are approved allied
aluminum steel or glass fiber batt. The duct covering has to
be made up of noncombustible material. Fire dampers would
not be placed in the openings of the walls of a smoke extract
shaft. Similarly, many condition have been discussed in the
design of the ventilation system in [8]. Various methods to
combat fire or smoke has been discussed in [9] specially
focusing on the European continent where fire or smoke
dampers are the most common method of control. Although
using this in buildings can incur a considerable amount of
cost, when fire or smoke spreads in the exhaust system, which
is fitted with special dampers operated by the air stream. The
main focus is on the ventilation systems equipped with a fan
and ductwork that connects several fire compartments. Fire
detection system using GSM is introduced in [10], where
SMS alert are sent to the residents of the building when the
temperature reaches a limit of 40 degrees Celsius. LM35,
temperature sensor is used which makes the operation very
simple and flexible. This technique would be useful in
 generating awareness that could be very effective in
controlling the spreading of the fire. Another technique has
been developed with a GSM Shield and an alarm [11], where
there is an SMS that is being sent to two pre-programmed
numbers in order to notify the users about the event of a fire
and the alarm is also turned on to notify the residents. A low
cost and high reliable system based on GSM has been
implemented with Arduino for fire sensing applications in
both industries and at residential complexes [12]. A national
semiconductor temperature sensor and a microchip
microcontroller have been used in designing a gas leakage
and fire warning system via GSM in [13]. When the received
data from the sensor exceeds the set limit, it would trigger an
SMS alert via the GSM network to the numbers that have
been programmed in the code. This methodology could help
in reducing the uncontrolled fire, as there are warnings
provided about a dangerous condition before the outbreak of
in fire, the system is discussed in [14] consists of a main
control panel, alarming devices, equipment for notification
and accessories for complete functioning of the system. It
utilizes addressable detector units and wireless connections
in between the detectors known as slave unit and the master
unit is a main control unit. In [15], review of the existing fire
detector systems has been carried out, and an alert system has
been designed to send SMS via GSM using a reliable
microcontroller system.
The system in [16] uses Raspberry Pi and Arduino UNO
to capture images via camera in the occurrence of a fire when
there is a presence of smoke detected in the room. This
system displays the image on a webpage and reports the event
using a SMS, this would reduce the false alert that can be
possibly generated and transmitted to the fire department, and
since there is only one picture taken and uploaded onto the
web the memory required for this purpose is considerably low
and the power usage is also reduced. SFF [17] uses an
integrated fuzzy logic in order to identify the break out of fire
and the severity of the fire. It is also embedded with a micro
controller unit and operated with multiple sensors and
actuators. To discard the possibility of false or deceptive fire
situation like welding or smoke emitted during cigarettes a
specialized algorithm called as data fusion algorithm has been
used. Various sensor technologies have been discussed in
[18] for the detection of fire and monitoring of fire.
There are some useful characteristics that has to be kept
in mind while designing a wireless fire alarm system
including cheap installation, fast and easy working
adaptability and low damages to the existing building design
structure [19]. Basically, there are 2 main technologies used
in detection of fire based on sensors and the other technique
analyses the pictures and frames of videos obtained [20-25].
The typical multi-sensor based type of event-driven WSN, is
a wireless automatic fire alarm system but with its special
requirements [26]. In [27], a home alarm system has been
designed including various useful features like protection
against theft system and fire and gas leakage. It employs two
pieces of SCM - single chip microcomputers and a voice-
recording module. This system triggers an alarm when the
threshold levels are exceeded and a voice message is
transmitted when smoke is detected. A ZigBee and FTP
webserver based real time surveillance and monitoring,
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places a camera inside the home and monitors the important
locations. The real time video is recorded and SMS is sent in
the event of smoke detection, but the facility of the live
broadcasting is currently unavailable and this SCM is
expensive when compared to the raspberry pi processors [28].
The same method has been also being implemented in [29],
where any penetration would be reported by a MMS
multimedia messaging service and a wireless sensor network
is formed using the sensors and motherboard. But again the
technique of using motherboards is costly.
Accordingly, this paper proposes an Embedded
Ventilation, Air Conditioning (EVAC) system which would
provide a proactive safety solution. The system is designed in
such a way as to considerably reduce the smoke inhalation
accidents, increase the efficiency of protection system and
minimize the injuries and causalities to human lives and
damages to property. The auto broadcasting alerts in case of
danger will help in reducing the number smoke inhalation
injuries and would help in the improving the response rates
by the emergency response team in putting off the fire and
saving lives and controlling damage.
III. METHODOLOGY
The EVAC system is mainly designed to reduce the
number of smoke inhalation injuries in case of indoor fire.
This can be achieved by controlling the interfacing between
the air conditioning system and the smoke extract fan through
auto switching the operational unit between them and
broadcasting alerts. Under normal conditions, the air
conditioner unit run in operational mode with the smoke and
temperature sensors receiving the input parameters from the
surroundings. The extractor fans would be non-operational.
In the unforeseen circumstances like fire, the system returns
the air conditioner system to non-operational mode and turn
the extract fans to operational condition, thus extracting
smoke from the fire zone.
Sequentially the system alerts the occupants of the area
through sound and light alarm, informing them of the
immediate danger. Moreover, the system also broadcasts the
information regarding the location of the incident to the
occupants and the emergency response team together with an
alarming call. This would help in improving the emergency
response rate and improving the possibility of saving lives
and property and minimizing damages considerably.
IV. PROPOSED SYSTEM
As shown in Fig. 1 the structure of the proposed EVAC
system comprises of three main elements: smoke and fire
sensing devices, modified Ventilation and Air-Condition
Control system (VAC), and control box-IoT. The sensing
devices are used to detect the smoke or fire. The control Box-
IoT used to process information received from the sensors to
activate the controls of the sound alarm, light alarm, and the
VAC systems. Furthermore, it broadcast the location of the
incident to emergency response team and alert the occupants.
The location of the incident it also updated via IOT
applications. The VAC system receives activation signal (in
the case of detecting fire or smoke) which control the air
conditioning system and the exhaust fan to avert the
possibility of spreading out the fire by turning off the air
conditioning system.
 Modified VAC Control Box -
Sensing devices
Fig. 1. Proposed EVAC System Design
V. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
The idea behind the proposed design is to compile air
conditioning, ventilation and smoke extraction, and
protection system all in a single electromechanical embedded
system. The system is designed by attaching a smoke
extracting fan to an existing but modified air-conditioning
system which both systems are connected and
communicating with the control box-IoT where a protection
protocol and warning system are adapted. In order to develop
such system the following should be implemented:
1. Modifying an existing air-condition (AC) system
2. Redesigning of the existing smoke extraction and duct
system
3. Develop the VAC system by compiling AC with
extraction fan over a path of well-defined duct network
where supply of air, return of air, and extraction of air
are being performed.
4. Design the control box-IoT where sensing and actuators
devices are working together; for monitoring and
controlling the parameters as required. Include also the
Communication and IoT system for the warning and
broadcasts system information.
5. Connect the VAC system to the Control Box-IoT
6. Develop the software and the communication.
VI. WORKING PRINCIPLE
The block diagram of the EVAC system is shown in Fig.2.
The sequence of the system operation (reading/actions) is
described below:
1. The air conditioning system is designed, modified and
attached to smoke extraction fan (VAC system). The air
conditioning system is running at a normal state, the
extracting fan is off and it is controlled via the control box-
IoT attached to the system. The system is embedded with
sensing and actuating devices which are in turn, reading
signals and measuring as programmed by the controller.
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Fig. 2. General block connections and terminals.
2. An indicating light of control box flashes green as an
indicator, representing normal running conditions of the
protection system and a connected LCD shows the
temperature and the sensing signals.
3. When fire occurs at a place and fumes from the smoke are
emitted, the smoke detector and the temperature sensor detect
high values of readings and the send them to the processor
module (i.e the Arduino kit).
4. As soon as the processor receives the smoke and fire
detected signals, it sends the controlling signal to VAC by
performing a control action to switch to the danger state
(Switch off AC and turn on extraction fan)
5. Concurrently, the communication protocol at the same time
issues a warning SMS through GSM module and a warning
call is placed to the emergency response team and the
departments concerned and it would also notify the occupants
of the place.
6. The level one warning alarms are activated, which include,
the flashing of warning light, warning sound in terms of
alarms and buzzers, and protection state is displayed on the
LCD.
7. The AC is non-operational when the smoke extracting fan
is running.
8. The smoke and temperature detector repeatedly keep
measuring the level of the smoke and temperature of the
system. The state will remain valid until normal values of
readings are measured or reset.
9. A set period of time limit is predefined for the security
protocol, wherein if there is no response within the stipulated
time frame or if the measurement values of the sensor are still
high and increasing and there is no manual layer of reset input
 is received by the system, a higher warning layer is adapted better triggering function (i.e. software wise), with different
and alarming notification will be sent to responsible authority and more robust module. The prototyped version might be
team like the emergency response team. accomplished with different components as long as the
10. The GPS module indicates the location with the described compatibility is considered.
address.
VII. RESULTS
11. All values indicating the dangerous situation are recorded
in IoT platform and a log sheet would be issued for keeping The circuit diagram of the proposed design is shown in Fig.4
record. The IoT platform is also Mobile compatible and the
users can monitor and control the device via a mobile
application. The figure shows also the two states (State 0,
State 1) represent the normal situation and the emergency
case respectively. Generally, the system is assuming that
exhaust fan is normally switched off and the AC is normally
ON, of course this assumption does not force the design.

The alarming protocol path is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 4. Circuit diagram of the proposed design..

The testing of the design and functionality with a prototyped

version of the system is shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 5 (a) shows the
State 0 whereby the AC working in the normal condition. Fig.
5 (b) Represent the system when smoke detected and
alarming on. Fig. 5 (c) Representing switching AC on and
Exhaust Fan Off. Figs. 5 (d)& (e) Demonstrates triggering
SMS and call respectively, and Fig. 5 (f) shows that, system
turn back to State 0 after smoke level is decreased.

Fig. 3. System flow chart and alarming protocol path.

In order to design a prototyped version of such product, some

basic components have been used for laboratory experiment
and testing only. The AC has been stimulated using Peltier
element thermal module, cooling fan and heat sink, extra
semiconductor cooler, radiators and cooling body. The
exhaust path and fan has been designed prototyped by 12 V
fan and PVC and powered by fully isolated switching power
supply. The design of the final product has not been approved
yet since safety regulation and Heating, Ventilation, and Air
Conditioning (HVAC) installation specification must be Fig. 5. Testing the design and functionality with a prototyped version of
investigated and verified. One of the technical challenged is the sytem
the time delay in alarming activation response which is
recorder up to ~3 seconds due to GSM connectivity and Based on the above prototype, the proposed EVAC system
switching loop. This time consuming can be enhanced using design can be implemented in real time as shown in Fig. 6.

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 The dissipating unit (exhaust outdoor unit) and the air
Exhaust outdoor unit
conditioning unit might be assembled together in order to
propose such a design with two different supply lines. By (dissipating unit)
vertical assembling both AC and ventilation for the indoor
unit, we split the internal body into two sections with
common control Box and common extender to the supply
line. The circuit is placed side to side to the control Box for
the outer cover with exit isolation theme.

VIII. DISCUSSION
Ventilation is an important parameter, that is considered
by firefighters in fighting fires and smoke, during a fire
accident. Adding the ability of automatically controlling an
exhaust fan in case of danger, seems to be an advantage that
may help in exhausting a fire or alarming a smoke level. The
proposed system considers the ability of modifying the Outdoor unit (proposed Supply
existing HVAC system to be compatible with our proposed for conditioning and Line for
design. The authors realize that such a design need to be ventilation) Indoor unit
studied and investigated by HVAC expert for the possibility
of practical implementation since our study focused on
building the embedded circuit with a prototyped version. This
project is still open and a collaboration with the industry has
been initiated in order to investigate the design technically.
The current work focuses on response time improvement and
IoT control.
IX. CONCLUSION
The proposed EVAC system introduces a new idea of Indoor unit (AC and exhaust fan
compiling the air conditioning system with an exhaust fan in with two vertical layer)
a single device that is equipped with automatic alarming and
broadcasting alert systems. The system can significantly
reduce the injuries and causalities of
human lives and damages to property in case of indoor fires.
Further studies will be conducted on mechanical and material
installation characteristics as well as situations whereby the Side covering with control Box (LCD, lighting,
system power is disconnection for real time implementation. communication module and power terminals)
Furthermore, since the system is connected to IoT platform,
monitoring and controlling of the process parameters are Fig. 6. Proposed real time system implementaion

remotely possible which can assist the industry in the next

step of the product design.
REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the reviewers and
collaborators for their valuable comments and suggestions to
improve the quality of the paper. This paper is based on a
project that has been supported by Emirate foundation and
Think Science fair 2017, UAE. The assembly and testing were
conducted in Higher College of Technology labs.
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