DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SMART HOME SYSTEM USING GSM TECHNOLOGY

1.1 Introduction

The term “Smart Home” was first coined by the American Association of House builders in 1984 with the invention of microcontrollers (Moawia Yahia, 2014). The overall idea is to provide improved efficiency and security in their place and areas of applications. Smart Home can be also known as Automated Home or intelligent home which indicates the automation of daily tasks with electrical appliances used in homes. This could be the control of lights, fans, viewing of the house interiors for surveillance purposes or giving the alarm alteration or indication in case of gas leakage.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

Smart Home can be also known as Automated Home or intelligent home which indicates the automation of daily tasks with electrical appliances used in homes. This could be the control of lights, fans, viewing of the house interiors for surveillance purposes or giving the alarm alteration or indication in case of gas leakage.

One of the reasons for the rise of the smart home is the increasing risk of burglary and robbery and the busy lifestyle of people is leading to the necessity of controlling the devices at home remotely and increasing the necessity of keeping surveillance over their homes.

The goal of the project is to implement a smart home system by controlling the electronic devices at home remotely with the help of a mobile device and getting alerts on intrusion or movement around the restricted premises.

Arduino- uno Microcontroller, motion sensors, heat sensors led bulb and SIM808-GPRS/GSM module are used to design this system.

SIM808-GPRS/GSM module and the Arduino-Uno Board are used to communicate between the mobile phone and the devices and sensors installed at home. The mobile phone can be used as a controller from anywhere in the world if the GSM network is available (Patranabis, 2003).

Lifestyle in the modern society along with human behaviour and thinking is changing dramatically with the advancement of technology, and the concept of a simple home is changing into a smart home.

In the scope of industrialization, automation is step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirement of work, automation greatly decreases the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Automation plays an increasing important role in the world economy and in daily experience. Automatic systems are being preferred over manual systems. This project shows the automatic control of a house as a result of which power is saved to some extent.

Home security has changed a lot from the last century and will be changing in coming years. Security is an important aspect or feature in the smart home applications. The new and emerging concept of smart homes offers a comfortable, convenient, and safe environment for occupants. Conventional security systems keep homeowners, and their property, safe from intruders by giving the indication in terms of alarm. However, a smart home security system offers many more benefits (Mior, 2009).

The advancement of technology has increased the safety and security of people along with their belongings. Mobile phones today are not just used to make calls. The use of mobile phones is changing with the development of technology and they can be used for different purposes. They can be used as clocks, calendars or controllers instead of being used just as phones. Today smart phones are available in the market with different applications and hardware which can be implemented without any further development or enhancement. With the help of the GSM network, a mobile can be used to implement a smart home by controlling devices and getting alerts on robbery and burglary.

The cost of the system can be deter-mined by the user as the cost depends on the hardware used in the system chosen by the developer.

The project consists of a LED light which is controlled by the mobile phone to show the demo of controlling mechanism of the household devices such as light, fan or television. In addition, three sensors are used as a heat detector, motion detector and intrusion detector which trigger the alarm upon reaching the critical limit. It also consists of a designed control system which is based on the GSM technology that effectively allows control from a remote area to the desired location.

This system is also designed to be able to send information without using a PC (Personal Computer), which helps monitor the situation the house quickly and cheaply. C programming language is used in making this system, the program was applied to create a security system works automatically, which can make two way communications with user mobile phone when there is a security breach in the house. The two way communication used to turn off the buzzer after activated when security breach occur. Modular-in design is use to make easy expandable for more sensors to be added to the core system − Arduino Uno open-source microcontroller platform (Subash, 2013).

Its capability on detecting motion with a simple design at lowest cost is needed to build an effective house security system based on motion detection. The system is limited to areas with GSM network available and the whole system does not work without the network.

1.3 Statement of Problem

Crime in Nigeria is a huge problem, and as such home and personal security threats are something that all Nigerians experience on a daily basis.

Although homes, businesses and people spend a significant amount of money on security fees and systems, many problems and weaknesses still exist within the systems that we use today.

A residence without a home security system is approximately three times more likely to be broken into than one without. Home owners who have homesecurity systems loose less in valuables in the event of a robbery. These facts prove that the installation of a home security system dissuades intruders and protects your home.

Thus, having a smart home system may decrease the chances of a burglary. Even if the alarm system does not keep a burglar from breaking in, it may cause the burglar to stay a shorter amount of time.

Besides the existing alarm is a dependent system which depends on the neighbours to inform the authority or the owner about any incident regarding the house. The importance to design a GSM based smart home system is to have a more independent device which when it detects any movement especially human movement, it will send an alert to the home owner and also signal to the buzzer and timer will set time for period to trigger the alarm.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this project is to develop GSM based smart home system that will allow its users to remotely control and monitor multiple home appliances and detect intrusion using a cellular phone. (But are not limited to) security systems, lights; anything with an electrical interface. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To design a GSM smart system for home control
2. To implement the system using appropriate tools

1.5 Significance of Study

This project concentrates on a development of a smart home system to control appliances and also detect intruders in a home. To develop the whole project, it consists of three methods which the mobile station, the microcontroller unit with the SIM808-GPRS/GSM module, sensors and the light system and the software programming. Arduino Uno Board is used as the microcontroller board. The mobile phone is used as a controller to send instructions and as a recipient to receive the responses and alerts from the microcontroller unit, whereas the Arduino Board is the unit responsible for controlling the different parts and acts as the brain of the system. The SIM808-GPRS/GSM module is responsible for communication between the microcontroller unit and the mobile station, while the software programming is based on the microcontroller instruction sets. It contains a program in C language designed for a security system as an interaction to operate the electrical structure.

1.6 Scope of Study

The study focuses on the Design and Implementation of Smart Home System using GSM Technology.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

1.8 Definition of Terms

Automation: This is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services.

Microcontroller: This is a self contained system with peripherals, memory and a processor that can be used as an embedded system.

Led bulb/light: Light-Emitting Diode is a two − lead semiconductor light source that emits visible light when an electric current passes through it.

Sensor: This is a device that detects and responds to some type of input from the physical environment.

Smart home: Smart home is a house equipped with lighting, heating, and electronic devices that can be controlled remotely by phone or computer.

Arduino: Arduino is an open source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible hardware and software.

Arduino Uno: Arduino Uno is one of the microcontroller boards manufactured by the Arduino and it is a microcontroller board based on the Atmel’s ATmega328 microcontroller