Humidity Sensor Temperature Sensor Relay Switches

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract

When it comes to globalization embedded designs are one of the advanced technological development in the modern world. When Ethernet connectivity combines with embedded systems a vast range of communication features can be met via remote connections. As example remote monitoring systems, browsing systems or service alert facilities can be brought forward. This would be time saving as well as cost effective. People would find it easy to monitor and control embedded systems remotely instead of physically controlling them.

In many Organizations there must be large amount of sensitive data that must be protected. Exceeding Temperature or Humidity can cause damage to Organization equipment’s. And also it should have the functionality to control the number of employees entering to the Data Center for unimportant reasons. (ex:-Entering to switch On/Off lights). To control and monitor remotely placed devices, every time someone should go to that place and make certain operations. Additionally there should be a way to track the access to the Data Center. When the Temperature and Humidity of the Data Center exceeds or decreased from pre-defined values there should be a way to alert to the responsible person. To overcome these problems this project has developed a system that saves time and control and monitor remote devices through LAN.

This system can easily switch On/Off lights. Scheduling the amount of time the lights should be on is another feature in this system. So in that case it helps to save the power consumption and reduce labor cost. This system can easily detect the exceeding temperature or humidity and inform the responsible person by sending an SMS. If an unauthorized person enters the data center an SMS alert will be send to the responsible person. The main seek of this project is to develop a controlling monitoring and security system for an Organization.

Introduction

In many Organizations there are data centers which contain sensitive data which has to be protected. And there are many remotely placed devices like lights, AC, fans, etc that sometimes consumes power for no reason. So if those devices need to be turned On/Off an employee should go to that place and make necessary operations. This task may consume valuable time and money of the Organization. The Temperature or the Humidity of the data center exceed or decreased for some reason (ex: - cause of fire) there is a large possibility that it may result in damage to the organization sensitive data. So there should be a way to continually monitor the Temperature and the Humidity and if there is a large difference between the current temperature value and the expected temperature value the system should inform to the responsible person immediately. Furthermore it should be able to control the number of employees entering to the Data Center for unimportant reasons. So to reduce the outcomes of the above problem this project has introduced a system that continuously monitor secures the data of an organization.

The system is mainly designed to control remote devices (ex:-lights, etc…) and switch On/Off those devices when necessary. The system can also schedule the time that the lights should be on. So the main purpose of those two tasks is to reduce the power consumption. This system can detect exceeding or decreasing temperature and humidity and if the current temperature value is considered harmful, the system automatically sends an SMS alert to the responsible person. So as a result of this task large number of sensitive information can be saved in the organization. Finally this system can detect the access to the Data Center and inform the responsible person by sending an SMS alert and also a Buzzer will be activated.

Aims and Objectives

Aims

Control remote devices through LAN (Lights, A/Cs, etc)

Automating tasks (Scheduling tasks)

Monitoring parameters like temperature, humidity in a desired environment

Sending SMS alerts

Test and evaluate the completed product

In order to achieve the above goals, following objectives should be met.

A1.Collect background information about the Local Area Networks which the system is going to be placed

A2.According to the gathered data design the system architecture

B1.Obtain the current user activity time periods that devices ON/OFF (Lights, A/C) in the existing environment

B2.According to the collected data, schedule the device Automatic tasks

C1.Collect data such as temperature and humidity in the desired environment which the system is going to be used.

C2.According to the gathered information, set up the values in temperature and humidity sensors

D1.Identify an appropriate language to build up the user interface for the system.

D2.Produce designs for database, input screen and output reports.

D3.Implement these designs in the chosen language.

E1.Launch trial attempts to test the correctness of the system

E2.Evaluate the system from the point of view of the System Administrator

E3.Identify the areas to be brought forward and make future recommendation

Expected Out Comes

1. At the end of the project a cost effective, reliable and efficient system is expected.

2.The system should be able to on/off devices in a data center, monitor the temperature and the humidity of the data center, control the light system and in case of an emergency if temperature and humidity changes rapidly it should send an SMS alert to the respected person.

3. The sensors, resistors, microcontroller and other sensitive materials should be dependable which the quality is high.

4. To accomplish this task a proper time table and a work schedule must be planned out first. For this a list of tasks should be arranged and how those each item must be delivered should defined.

5. Individual Project (A303EC) must be documented and demonstrate using the fully functioning system before or end of semester.

System overview

This system mainly deals with two major functionalities. The microcontroller continually listens for a signal coming from the PC. The received signal will be decoded and the micro controller will check for the status of the relay array. So according to the user requirement the lights can be controlled. For an example if the light is currently turned ON and the user wish to turn the light OFF the desired relay will be switched OFF. And the user can schedule the amount of time the lights should be turned on or off.

Every 30 seconds the micro controller reads the current temperature and humidity using the desired sensors. The values that have been read are forward to the remote PC. If the Temperature or the Humidity exceeds the desired values then the PC will generate a SMS message and send it to a responsible person.

Access to the Data Center will be detected using an IR sensor or LDR. At such situation an interrupt will be trigged from the micro controller and it will switch on the Buzzer and also sends a signal to the Remote PC. Form the PC side a SMS message will be generated and forward the message to a responsible Person.

Ozeki NG SMS Gateway software is used to generate a SMS message. A database is been maintained to send SMS messages.The General Overview of the System is displayed in Figure1

Data Center

MCU

Humidity Sensor Temperature Sensor Relay switches

Outlet

Remote PC Door Check

Ethernet to Serial Converter

Mobile Phone

Figure 1- Overview of the System

Visual Basics software has been used for the user interface as the application platform monitors and co-ordinates with the embedded devices, attached to the LAN. Using this system it will be enabling to communicate with any embedded systems or machine connected to the LAN. This project is mainly doing an application with the embedded LAN card available. This card mainly has an interface to the LAN and it has a serial port .The micro controller with different devices will be connected according to the Figure 2. To control any of the devices it is required to send a command indicating switch off the relay one with the IP address of that network.

LAN Cable

Micro Controller-

PIC16F877A

Control

Circuit

Ethernet to Serial Convertor

RS232

Convertor

Computer

Device 1

Device 2

Device 4

Device 3

Temperature Sensor

Door check

Power Supply

Trans Former

Rectifier

Regulator

(7805)

Humidity Sensor

Buzzer

Buzzer Driver

Buzzer OSC

Figure 2- overall Block diagram of the systemFigure 2 displays the overall Block diagram of the system

Mobile Phone

Scope and limitations

This project will involve the production of a system for use especially by System Administrators. This can monitor, control and secure the sensitive data of an organization. This project is widely useful for a Date Center. It consists SMS functionality for exceeding and decreasing Temperature and Humidity and SMS functionality to prevent unauthorized access to the Data Center .This system will provide a way to monitor the Data Center from a Remote location. There are several specific and general accomplishments that an organization gain by using such a system.

Since this system uses serial connectivity, it will not be giving the advanced feature connectivity such as Fiber optic and it is required to have a serial connection in order to use this device in a Data Center or in a Local Area Network.

Research Methodology

In this modern world with the rapid growing of the technology people are mostly tend to research on automatic devices.

When it comes to data centers, there are some sensible areas that has to be highly pay our attention on.

Customer data, Transaction data, Authorization data are some key and very sensible data that should be kept in secure. But there’s always a possibility that physical disasters or damages can arises in such environments.

According to this research, there are data centers that still manually monitors and controls the devices and equipment such as temperature, humidity, lights and switches. This consumes a lot of time and effort of human power and time. Most companies wastes a lot electricity energy and human energy to maintain the temperature and humidity in data centers.

For such environment this proposed system brings an answers where most people don’t even think about such automated data center monitoring and controlling systems.

Project Evaluation

According to the research findings and evaluations done to start this project, it is very clear that most data centers in some countries uses manual methods to control or monitor activities, temperature and humidity. As example in Sri-Lanka, at Sri-Lanka Telecom, the main telecommunication sector in my country uses a manual method to note down the temperature everyday according to a scheduled time period.

In developed countries, the situation is the opposite. Even though they are highly equipped when it comes to technology, the automatic methods are highly expensive. As example, Exetel is one of the main telecommunication industry in Australia. They uses an automated system to control data center activity and to measure temperature and humidity. But according to the research findings it proves that the technology is expensive.

But this project, "Automated Data Center Monitoring and Controlling System" would be the solution for all those questions. It would be a very cost cutting solution which the customers would find it easy to afford. Fully functioning and fully auto mated system could bring a lot advantages for many organizations where they could get those advantages for an affordable budget.

Risk Analysis and Contingency Planning

By analyzing the possible risks that can engaged in this project and contingency planning it will be beneficial to find alternatives to eliminate or reduce the possible failures that can occur during and after the project.

Some of the possible risks that can face during this project are listed below,

In accurate time estimation.

If wrong time estimations is proposed it can be effected to the entire project schedule.

Unexpected budget cuts.

If unexpected budget costs arises it can be a disadvantage at the end of the project.

Scope expansions unexpectedly.

If the scope expanses unexpectedly it can be resulted as a project failure.

Failure to resolve the responsibilities.

If incase responsibilities are not resolved it can be end up in project failure

Insufficient resources.

All the necessary resources should be met in order to achieve the final outcome.

Less proper subject training.

If the proper subject knowledge lacks it can be coursed to the entire project

Technological errors.

Technological errors can be always expected and it is a risk to the project.

System maintenance problems.

The maintenances should be done properly in order to keep the product up and running

Resources

Power Supply

The microcontroller and other devices get power supply from AC to Dc adapter through voltage regulator. The adapter output voltage will be 12V DC non-regulated. The 7805 voltage regulators are used to convert 12 V to 5VDC as shown in Figure 3

DC Out

Out

AC Power

Filter

Regulator (7805)

AC/DC Adapter

Figure 3-12V to 5dc CONVERSTION USING 7805 REGULATOR

Micro controller-PIC16F877A

The PIC16F877A is a low-power, high-performance CMOS 8-bit microcontroller with 8K bytes of in-system programmable Flash memory. It is a 40 pin micro controller which has the capability handle interrupts.

RS 232 CONVERTER (MAX 232N)

This is the device, which is used to convert TTL/RS232 vice versa.

Relay

The relay subsystem is an electrically-operated switch. The relay switches when the signal coming into the driver is high. It must be connected to a Darlington or transducer driver subsystem.

The relay coil is connected between the supply rail (+V) and the input signal. This acts as load on the driver. When the input signal coming into the relay subsystem is low, a potential difference across the relay coil causes current to flow. It is this flow of current that causes contacts to switch.

Relay is used as electrical switch to control the devices attached to device.

E2S CARD

E2S card is a serial /Ethernet and Ethernet/serial converter module. E2S is a device that converts RS-232 protocol into TCP/IP protocol. It will be enabling remote gauging, managing and control of a Serial device through the network based on Ethernet and TCP/IP by connecting to the existing equipment with RS-232 serial interface. In other words, E2S is a protocol converter that transmits the data sent by serial equipment as TCP/IP data type and converts back the TCP/IP data received through the network into serial data to transmit back to the equipment. E2S also supports UDP protocol for Broadcast kind of application.

Figure 4 – Block diagramC:\Users\Altaaf\Desktop\etos.jpg

E2S Card is used to capture the user commands and convert the data into Ethernet packets.

Buzzer

The buzzer subsystem produces a 2 KHz audible tone when powered. The buzzer will sound when the signal coming into the driver is high. It must be connected to a transistor, Darlington or transducer driver subsystem.

The buzzer is connected between the supply rail (+ V) and the input signal. This acts as load on the driver. When the input signal coming into the buzzer subsystem is low, a potential difference across the buzzer causes current to flow. It is this flow of current that causes the buzzer to sound.