International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056

Volume: 04 Issue: 07 | July-2017 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

AUTOMATIC STREET LIGHT OPERATING SYSTEM

Ch.Hemantha Kumar1, K.Venkata Ramana2, A.Sireesha3, U.V.S.D. Prasad4, K.Bindhu Mounika5,

K.Veerayya Dora6

1 ,2,3,4,5,6B.Tech Student Scholar, Pragati Engineering College, Andhra Pradesh, India

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Abstract - Per capita electricity consumption of a county due to lack of punctuality in switching timings. Also,
is an indication of development of the county among others. manual operation requires more man power. Working of
In developing countries like India, generation growth of street lights even day time is commonly seen in outsides.
electricity is not meeting the consumption growth of But operation of large number of street lights for longer
electricity. The demand of electricity is more than the times imposes more burden on the generation and
generation every time. By efficient utilization of electricity, distribution system. This improper operation leads not
balance between the generation and demand can be only energy wastage, but causes reduction in the lamp life
achieved. and increase in maintenance cost too.

Automating the street light system for efficient switching of 3. PROPOSED SYSTEM
street lights helps in reducing the electricity consumption
drastically. In this paper, it is shown here that how The efficient switching of street lights can be achieved
Automation can be achieved using Arduino microcontroller. by automation rather than switching manually. There are
And its operation according to the seasonal changes is two main factors of automation. They are reliability and
possible with flexible adjustments of system from PC using a flexibility of operation. And an automated should be
specially designed computer software application in Java. designed at greater flexibility of operation, most reliable
and easy interfacing capabilities.
Key Words: Street Lights, Electricity, efficient
utilization, Arduino microcontroller, Java application. In this proposed system, automating the street lights
is done with Arduino microcontroller [3].Arduino is a fast
and powerful programmable microcontroller which has
1. INTRODUCTION
greater control capabilities and used in wide range of
applications. It can be easily interfaced with Personal
India is a country where a major chunk of population Computers (PCs).Operating parameters for the operation
is still not connected to the power grid. In order to supply of microcontroller like operating mode, street light ON
power to them, India will need to create either newer period time, threshold level of sensors and communicating
sources of power or reduce the power demand by ports are adjusted from specially designed graphical user
implementing energy efficient devices at all levels. interface application in PC.
Creating a new power supply is a very big task and also
involves too much of economical investment. So, efficient To meet greater reliability, a secondary control unit is
utilization of electricity is preferred. Global trends in designed with timer circuit. The secondary unit is set such
street lighting show that 18-38% of the total energy bill that whenever the microcontroller fails to operate or
goes towards street lighting and therefore this is one malfunctioning, it controls the system with predefined less
domain that needs major attention if we look at improving flexible operation of street lights and gives an indication
efficiency of power consumption with an objective of for failure of microcontroller to the control room.
saving energy [1].
4. WORKING
After mid night there is less requirement of light in the
streets as there is no passage of people. We can automate
the Street light system to switch off the street lights during The operation of the street lights starts from
day time and switch off alternative street lights at mid control room where the operator decides the system
night. We can save more than 25% of normal consumption requirement like ON period of lights, threshold levels of
using this system. sensor. The working of the module can be understand
from the block diagram shown below Fig. (1).
2. EXISTING SYSTEM
All the street lights are divided into two
alternative groups. One group consists of odd numbered
The present normal system of street lights is (1st, 3rd, 5th..) street lights and other group consists of
manually operated where there is more wastage of power even numbered (2nd, 4th, 6th..) street lights.

2017, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 5.181 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1646
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056
Volume: 04 Issue: 07 | July-2017 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

USB serial chord. The Arduino is programmed to receive

the data and stores it in the EEPROM. Up to the user
changes the mode of operation and hits the apply button,
this data is read by Arduino and executed continuously.

Fig -1: Block diagram of working module

The two groups of lights are fed from two

separate phase lines and a common neutral line.
Alternative lights can be ON by powering either of the
phases. If supply is given to both of the phase wires, all
lights will be switched ON. Fig -3: Control Panel in PC

5. AUTO MODE

The most useful mode in the system is AUTO mode. In

this mode of operation, system works on LDR (Light
Dependant Resistance) sensors and timers in the Arduino.
LDR is a light-controlled variable resistor.
The resistance of a LDR decreases with increasing incident
light intensity; in other words, it
exhibits photoconductivity.

Fig -2: Connection of street lights The voltage across LDR in a voltage divider circuit as
shown in figure (4) is continuously monitored by analog
The high power street lights cant be connected to input pin of Arduino. The analog voltage is converted to
Arduino microcontroller directly as the power handling light illumination and compared with the user selected
capacity of Arduino is very low compared to street light threshold lux level of operation in PC. If it is found lower
(about 5V and 40mA/pin)[2]. The Arduino output pins are than the threshold level lights are switched ON.
connected to an auxiliary contactor which feeds operating
coil of field contactor. Loads (Street Lights) are connected
to field contactors via phase-1 and phase-2.

The operator is given by a Graphical User Interface

(GUI) in the PC. There are FOUR modes of operations
available in the given control panel. They are

a) All OFF
All lights will be OFF
b) All ON
All lights will be ON
c) MANUAL
I. Phase-1 ON: Only Phase-1 Lights will be ON LDR
II. Phase-2 ON: Only Phase-2 Lights will be ON
d) AUTO
System goes into auto mode

When user hits the apply button in the control panel,

parameters in the control panel are sent to Arduino trough Fig -4: Control Panel in PC

2017, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 5.181 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1647
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056
Volume: 04 Issue: 07 | July-2017 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

But accumulation of any dust or objects on the corresponding to 6 hours from the starting, alternative
LDR sensor will raise the voltage across it and results to lights are set to ON by de-energizing one phase.
malfunctioning of the system. To overcome this difficulty,
wiper is used along with the LDR. Whenever the voltage 5. RESULT
across LDR increases due to low light, the wiper is set to
wipe the LDR. The voltage is read by the Arduino second The implementation of hardware prototype is shown in
time and compared with threshold value. figure(6). The corresponding results attained for the
prototype is tabulated in the given table 1.
If still the light is found low, it is assumed as evening,
the two phases are powered to power all lights and timer Table -1: Response of lights for corresponding modes of
is started. When the timer reaches the user defined time in operation
the PC, one phase is de-energized which results in
alternative street lights to ON. In the early morning, when
sunlight falls on the LDR, the voltage across LDR is SNO MODES RESPONSE
changed. This changed voltage is identified by the Arduino 1 ON Phase A & B are ON
and all lights all set to OFF by de-energizing both phases. 2 OFF Both phases are OFF
3 AUTO Works according to user
The reliability of the system can be improved by interface
providing substitute timer circuit which is secondary 4 MANUAL Selected phase(A or B) in the
control unit for this system. The secondary control unit control panel is set to ON
consists of 555-timer circuit which does the operation of
Arduino when Arduino is failed to operate. The circuit
diagram of secondary control unit is shown in the figure
(5). When Arduino inactive state is recognized by
secondary control unit, the user has no control over the
system and operation of system is according to the
predefined timings in secondary control system by design.
This leads the system operation more reliable and
continuous.

Fig -5: Hardware prototype

3. CONCLUSIONS

This type of novel design gives efficient utilization

of electricity, hence energy will be saved. Well-designed
GUI helps in user-friendly operation. This unique design
Fig -5: Circuit diagram of secondary control unit which operates automatically with well protected sensors
leads reliable operation. Finally this project is simply one
Secondary control unit consists of a Wheatstone time investment and reliable which can easily reimbursed
bridge with LDR, 555-timer and IC 4017 counter. Outdoor in a few months.
light is sensed by LDR and error voltage is created across
the bridge. The sign of the error voltage is amplified with REFERENCES
IC 174 comparator to enable or disable 555-timer and
relays in the system. When light is low, comparator [1] Electricity consumption
enables the 555-timer along with relays and powers all the http://www.mapsofindia.com/my-
lights. The pulses generated by 555-timer are counted india/government/street-lighting-in-india-and-need-
with help of counter. When the counter reaches the state for-energy-efficient-solutions

2017, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 5.181 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1648
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056
Volume: 04 Issue: 07 | July-2017 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

[2] Arduino Nano Specifications

https://store.arduino.cc/arduino-nano
[3] Arduino Nano
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/arduinoBoardNan
oA00243
[4] LDR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoresis

BIOGRAPHIES

CH.HEMANTHA KUMAR pursuing

B.Tech in Electrical & Electronics
Engineering in Pragati Engineering
College. His area of Intrest are
Electromagnetics and Digital
Electronics.

K.VENKATARAMANA pursuing
B.Tech in Electrical & Electronics
Engineering in Pragati Engineering
College. His area of intrest in
Electrical Circuits.

A.SIREESHA pursuing B.Tech in

Electrical & Electronics Engineering in
Pragati Engineering College. She is
intrested in Electronics.

U.V.S.D.PRASAD pursuing B.Tech in

Electrical & Electronics Engineering in
Pragati Engineering College. He is
intrested in Power Electronics.

K.BINDU MOUNIKA pursuing B.Tech

in Electrical & Electronics Engineering
in Pragati Engineering College. She is
intrested in electronics

K. VEERAYYA DORA pursuing

B.Tech in Electrical & Electronics
Engineering in Pragati Engineering
College. He is intrested in Electrical
Machines.

2017, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 5.181 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1649