Fyp 1: Week 10 :- Proposal Final Year Project Progress (PART 2)

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The main objective of this project is to design a home automation system that allows remote control characteristics in easing the controls of home appliances. Without this technology, user may face many problems in setting up a Home Control System to control our home devices such as:

·   Difficult for the elderly or physically handicapped people to on and off the switches which located         at different place in house.

·  Waste our time in case; need to wake up in night if we forget to switch off any devices that may be   danger to our house.

·   Waste electricity in case; forget to switch off any home devices at upstairs if double storey houses.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review is a short and precise overview about the present state of research that is immediately connected with the proposed project. It also focuses on various theory and basic knowledge used in this project. In home automation, Android application act as transmitter, which sends ON/OFF commands to the receiver where loads are connected. By operating the specified remote switch on the transmitter, the loads can be turned ON/OFF remotely through wireless technology.  

Integration of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology in Controlling home appliances can help and improve lifestyle of all user groups especially to the disabled and elderly people in term of safety and comfortable. The implementation of combined wired and wireless systems would be of most practical in designing a smart home system especially in cutting the system’s installation cost for conventional home.           

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing processor core,memory and programmable I/O peripherals^{. [3]} After much research, PIC16F877A has been chosen. PIC microcontrollers (Programmable Interface Controllers) are electronic circuits that can be programmed to carry out a vast range of tasks. They can be programmed to be timers or to control a production line and much more. PIC Microcontrollers are relatively cheap and can be bought as pre-built circuits or as kits that can be assembled by the user. ^[3]

Software design section includes the main functions of the system designed in the PIC microcontroller and the GUIs Android application. The switches detection function is performed by the microcontroller, PIC. Window GUI is designed by a user-friendly interface. Control board ’’Connect‟ button is performed to establish connection to main control board by Bluetooth or USB. Phone ‘’Connect‟ button is performed to establish connection between Window GUI and Android GUI. When the both connections are established, Window GUI acts as the server between main board and phone.

METHODOLOGY

In this project, the core part to develop the home automated system is microcontroller. It acts as a brain which controls the whole system. This project consists of input and an output system. There are various methods involved in this project which includes:

      Design a home automation prototype with appropriate and precise height, weight and width.

      Design and construct circuit which consists of control system and subsystems

      Create programming code using C language to be used with the PIC.

      Assembly all the circuits and build a home automation prototype.

      Troubleshoot the circuit to ensure the functionality of it.

   
   A.BLOCK DIAGRAM

The hardware unit of the prototype is represented by the block diagram above. It contains a PIC16F877A microcontroller as the main processing unit and it gets inputs from the voltage regulator, and Bluetooth device. From the data obtained from the Bluetooth module the program controls the actuator components such as fans and fluorescent light to achieve the system requirements.

B.FLOW CHART

Figure 2: Flowchart

OBJECTIVE

This research study intends to plug the research gap and will demonstrate the development of the home automation system with Android based remote control by:

•      To study and research and design the home appliances and the control system

•      To study and research about the wireless Bluetooth module

•      To  study and research about the various microcontroller architectures

•      To learn about the android application software

•      To allow the system to portray a two-way communication system between the house-hold appliances and user’s controlling device