Low cost energy-efficient smart monitoring system using open-source microcontrollers

International Review of Automatic Control (I.RE.A.CO.), Vol. 9, N. 6
ISSN 1974-6059 November 2016
Copyright © 2016 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved DOI: 10.15866/ireaco.v9i6.10315
423
Low-Cost Energy-Efficient Smart Monitoring System
Using Open-Source Microcontrollers
Hadi Jameel1
, Husam Kareem2
Abstract – Monitoring home/office and many other locations have become highly recommended
and very important in present time. Different types of security and monitoring systems are
available in the markets but they have different pros and cons upon each other. This paper
presents the design and prototype implementation of a highly scalable low-cost energy efficient
smart monitoring system. Unlike the majority of the available monitoring systems in the markets,
this system exploits the concept of parallel processing by combining more than one
microcontroller (based on the design requirement). The Interface of microcontrollers together is
based on the master/slave technique which uses one central (master) microcontroller and one or
more slave microcontrollers. The communications between the central microcontroller and the
secondary microcontroller(s) is done using I2
C protocol. This system consists of microcontrollers
and hidden motion detection sensors that trigger the functionalities of other system components
such as buzzers, lights, cameras, and GSM. Moreover, an authentication code is used in the
system in order to allow authorized users to activate and deactivate the system. Copyright © 2016
Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved.
Keywords: GSM, I2
C Protocol, Monitoring System, Open Source Microcontroller, Parallel
Processing
I. Introduction
Generally, in worldwide and particularly in Iraq,
energy conservation has become an important concern
for the sustained development of many projects. In a
developing country like Iraq, the case is more grieved
since there is an insufficiency of the electrical power.
Moreover, the developing and scalability cost cannot be
neglected in the design of any project. Therefore, this
system is meant to achieve an affordable cost by being an
energy efficient and by using an open source
microcontroller which represents the core of the system.
Open source microcontroller is a type of hardware whose
sketches and designs are unrestricted and freely available
for everyone [1].
In addition to the above mentioned advantages, the
system is designed to be highly scalable when more than
one microcontroller is used in a master/slave scheme.
Thus, the system can be designed to fit with one location
up to many locations of the same building.
Besides the scalability feature, the system has
flexibility in the design process; the system can be
designed to work as single task system up to a fully smart
home automation system. For example, the system can
be designed to serve only one single task at home such as
locking/unlocking home's doors or it can be designed to
handle a number of tasks at the same time such as
lighting control, fire sensing, heating control, movement
detecting and monitoring and so on. Therefore, this
system gets significant advantages compared with the
previously presented systems because they are presented
either as monitoring system only [2] or full home
automation system but compromising the energy
consumption [3],[4] and the scalability.
The main objective of this study is to introduce a
smart monitoring system presenting an outperformance
over other systems achieved by combining energy
efficiency, low-cost and scalability in the same system.
The operation of the system can be shown in details
based on three stages; the first stage is the activating
stage which starts when the system is activated by
entering the activation code. The second stage begins
when an event (movement) is detected; therefore it is
called the detection stage. In the last stage a key is
entered to deactivate the system and stop all its
functionalities, hence it is known as a deactivation stage.
II. Related Work
In the recent advances, various communication
systems have been employed to create a wide variety of
smart systems like healthcare systems [5], smart sentinel
system [6], sensing and monitoring systems [7],
buildings automation systems [4] and so on. In this
section the related previous work on buildings
automation systems will be explored.
A smart home can be defined as a residence provided
with advanced technology which anticipates and
responds to the demands of the occupants, functioning to

Hadi Jameel, Husam Kareem
Copyright © 2016 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved International Review of Automatic Control, Vol. 9, N. 6
424
raise their security, convenience, and comfort [8].
The comprehensive concept of smart homes is the top
domestic technology can conceive. The smart homes
automation systems technology, which was considered as
science-fiction, has been transformed in reality when it
was introduced formally by the American Association of
House Builders [8]. After that, a wide variety of studies
have been introduced in the field of smart homes. This
paper will categorize the previous work on the basis of
the wireless communication technologies utilized in the
system to achieve sensing, remote data transfer and
controlling like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GSM.
Since Bluetooth technology has become a built in
technology in the majority of smartphone devices as well
as it is secure and simple, so that it is considered as a
low-cost solution for wireless connection between home
automation systems and smartphones. Hence, numerous
home automation system studies have been presented
based on the Bluetooth communication technology. The
system presented in [9] consists of two main hardware
devices: the Arduino Bluetooth and the smartphone. The
communications between these two parts are done using
a python script. The python script is hosted by the
smartphone to enable the user to access and control the
home appliances. A smart living system based on
Bluetooth and android smartphone has been introduced
in [10]. The system is called home lighting control
system and it consists of a microchip and several
Bluetooth modules making a network of Bluetooth
devices called "Piconet" [10]. The Bluetooth devices
connected are based on the master-slave structure where
the Bluetooth smartphone acts as the master one while
other Bluetooth devices, linked to the switches and home
lighting system, work as slave devices. The microchip
constantly checks the status of the lights and of input
commands from the smartphone.Some of the Smart
home systems, Bluetooth based, are designed to serve a
specific task at home such as locking/unlocking home
doors [11]-[12]. The security system developed in [11]
can control doors locks at home. The system requires to
be used in short range communication so that it is based
upon Bluetooth communication technology [11]. Java
programming language is used to design the GUI of the
program hosted by android smartphone. The system can
actuate a pin that can lock/unlock a door using an
android smartphone. Another study done in [12], presents
a project that can assist people with physical disabilities
to lock and unlock home door. The project utilizes a
Bluetooth module to establish the communication
between the user smartphone and the microcontroller
board then to the door lock.
The authors designed an android application called
Lockit Door, by using Java language, to allow the user
gain control on locking or unlocking the home door. The
project is tested and evaluated using three different
locations: indoor (non-obstacle), outdoor (non-obstacle),
and indoor (obstacle). Although Bluetooth can provide
secure, simple, and low-cost connection among different
smart home systems and mobile devices, it can only be
used for short range communication. Fig. 1 shows a
general conceptual model for Bluetooth based smart
home system controlled by a smartphone.
Fig. 1. General conceptual model of Bluetooth based
smart home system
Researchers tried to extend the connection range so
that to employ the WiFi technology to connect to the
internet to remotely access and control home devices and
appliances. A distributed home automation system has
been developed using WiFi technology to be the network
infrastructure connecting its parts [13]. This system
mainly comprises two parts; the first one is the web
server which acts as system core responsible for
controlling, managing, and monitoring users' home.
The second part is represented by hardware interface
that provides proper connection to sensors and actuators
of home automation system. Integration between ZigBee
and WiFi technologies to establish a smart home
automation system has been introduced in [14]. The
system includes sensor networks using ZigBee
technology to connect ZigBee and devices hosted by the
sensor nodes that can monitor temperature and humidity.
The sensors send the information to the microcontroller
which hosts the ZigBee coordinator. The microcontroller
transmits the sensed data to a WiFi base station so that it
can be remotely accessed and controlled through the
internet by a PC and/or smartphone.
Therefore, the use of WiFi technology in home
automation system can eliminate the limitation of the
connection distance that occurred in Bluetooth
technology. However, WiFi based projects require a
reliable and robust internet connection to assure the
system connectivity. In addition, the design cost and
complexity issues cannot be neglected in such projects.
Fig. 2 shows a general paradigm for WiFi based smart
home systems.
Fig. 2. General conceptual model of WiFi based smart home system

425
Taking in consideration the limitation in
communication distance in Bluetooth and the restriction
derived by the use of a reliable and robust internet
connection to assure the operation of WiFi based smart
home systems, researchers tend to use more flexible
communication technologies that can be used for remote
access control systems and at the same time do not
require an internet connection as the Global System for
Mobile Communication (GSM) [19].
Authors of [15] proposed a system that uses SMS
service through GSM network to provide the user a
remote monitor and control their home automation
system. The main goal of the proposed system is to
design and implement a low cost, flexible, and secure
home automation system. The system includes two major
components: the communication interface between the
user and home automation system represented by the
GSM modem and the bridge between the sensors and
appliance of home automation system and GSM network
which is represented by the microcontroller. Moreover
the system is capable of functioning within two modes:
monitoring mode and the execution mode [15]. A remote
monitoring and controlling system based on the
integration of Bluetooth and GSM technologies is
presented in [16]. The system is designed to achieve low
power consumption by using IR sensor to control fans,
lights, and other appliances via SMS service through
GSM network. In addition, users can control the system
by using the Bluetooth, in case the user is in an area
covered by Bluetooth communication range.
Therefore, using Bluetooth as an alternative for GSM
when the user is within the Bluetooth coverage range has
an advantage of eliminating the SMS usage charges.
Hence, the integration of GSM and Bluetooth could
compromise the drawbacks of technologies represented
by the short distance communication of Bluetooth and
the cost of exchanging SMS messages between the user
and GSM module.
A general scenario of GSM based home automation
system is shown in Fig. 3. Table I summarizes
microcontroller type, communication technology,
smartphone operating system, and end user software used
for each system mentioned above.
III. Problem Definition
The design of any monitoring and surveillance
systems can possibly face many challenges such as: cost
of ownership, energy conservation, security, and
scalability. The proposed system tries to overcome the
costs by using a low cost equipment which is mostly
open source and on the shelf hardware. On the other
hand, most of the system components will operate only if
an event is detected (movement) so that the energy
consumption is minimized to the lowest possible level. In
terms of security, the system uses GSM technology
which is known as high secured communication
technology that does not require an internet connection
making it high reliable and non-vulnerable.
Fig. 3. General conceptual model of GSM based smart home system
TABLE I
EXTRA DETAILS FOR THE RELATED WORK
MENTIONED IN THIS STUDY
Ref. Microcontroller
Communication
Technology
Programming Code
and Tools
[3] ATmega328 WiFi, Internet C
[4] ATmega328 WiFi, Internet C, Java
[9] ATmega168 Bluetooth C, Python
[10]
Microchip
(Not specified)
Bluetooth ADT, SDK, JDK
[11] Atmel ATmega2560 Bluetooth C, SDK
[12]
ATmega
(Arduino Uno)
Bluetooth C, Eclipse (Java)
[13] 8-bit Atmel WiFi, Internet C, ASP.NET
[14] Atmel ATmega2560 ZigBee, WiFi C, Java
[15] Atmel AT89C55 GSM C
[16]
8-bit
microcontroller
(not specified)
GSM, Bluetooth
Java Server Pages
JavaBeans
Interactive C
It is worthy to mention that some researches have
been done to facilitate the use of GSM system as in [17]
which can be considered an extra feature for this system.
Moreover, the system is designed to be highly scalable
and it can be used for small places up to large buildings.
The novel approach utilized in the system has made it
highly scalable, not only in term of size but also in terms
of adding more functions and services to the system.
The main contribution of the proposed system, which
makes it significant among other systems in the markets,
is the implementation of the parallel processing
approach. The system prototype is built based on the
concept of the parallel processing that can operate on
more than one processer at a time. Based on a
master/slave approach, the system consists of one master
microcontroller and one or more slave microcontroller(s).
The communication between the master microcontroller
and the slave(s) is done using I2
C protocol. In addition to
the scalability advantage that can be gained by
combining a number of microcontrollers, a processing
speed has become higher and consequently, the response
time of home appliances to the triggering events is
getting faster than ever.
IV. System design and methods
In this section, a prototype design and implementation
for the proposed system is presented. The system design
is divided into two main parts: hardware and software.
The hardware comprises the physical components while
the software includes the codes and protocols that run
and control the hardware.

426
IV.1. Hardware
The main hardware component of the system
prototype is represented by the microcontroller(s). As
stated above, the system contains one central
microcontroller and one or more secondary
microcontroller(s) connected and operated as
master/slave microcontrollers. The Arduino Mega board
based on ATmega2560 microcontroller is used to
function as the master one while the Arduino Uno board
based on ATmega328 microcontroller is employed to
operate as the slave. As mentioned in the IEEE spectrum
"Arduino has become the most influential open-source
hardware movement of its time" [18]. Moreover, a PIR
motion detection sensor which detects the Infrared Rays
released by human body motion within the detection area
of 7 Meters is used. A mini WiFi Camera combined with
a servo motor is used to start an immediate recording
upon movement detection.
The system uses a GSM communication technology to
communicate with the user. Lastly, a keypad is used to
input the system activation key to the master
microcontroller. A block diagram that shows the
input/output devices is presented in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Block diagram for hardware devices of the system prototype
IV.2. Software
Arduino software is a set of instructions used to tell
the hardware devices what to do and how to do it. The
Arduino software, which is represented by the Arduino
integrated development environment (IDE), is used to
develop and to evaluate the proposed system. Moreover,
different type libraries, which are compatible with the
Arduino IDE are used like LCD, keypad, I2
C protocol
libraries.
V. System Operation
In order to simplify and to clarify the system
operation, it will be divided into three stages: the
activation stage which begins when the user enters the
activation code and waits for an event (movement). The
second stage starts when an event is detected
(movement), the system will turn on the warning and
monitoring services. The last stage can be defined as the
deactivation stage since the system will continue
activating its services till a deactivation code is entered.
V.1. Activation Stage
At the beginning, the system is not active and to
activate it, it is required to enter the activation code.
Once the code is entered, the LCD displays an invalid pin
in case the entered code is incorrect. Whereas, the LCD
displays a valid pin and after that shows that the system
activated to inform the user that the system is in the
activation mode. When a movement is detected, this
stage is finished and moves to the second stage. The
operation procedure is shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Flowchart of the first stage operation
V.2. Detection Stage
The detection stage starts when an event is detected
(movement). Based on the prototype of the proposed
system, there are two entrances in the testing place.
Therefore, the movement is expected from two locations
which are both equipped with two hidden PIR sensors,
one for each.
The first response is done by activating a sound alarm
followed by turning the lights on. After that, the camera
mounted on a servo motor will rotate to the movement
location and starts recording. The recording of the
camera can be shared using WiFi network and can be
saved on an SD memory chip. Then, a SMS message is
sent by the GSM modem to warn the user about any
suspicious movement. Lastly, the LCD displays a
statement that tells system triggered. The flowchart of
this stage is shown in Fig. 6.
V.3. Deactivation Stage
As long as the deactivation key is not entered, LCD
displays an invalid pin and the system will continue
checking if there is still a movement inside the place and

427
if so, it would make all the functions mentioned in stage
two. In contrast, a valid key is entered, LCD displays
valid pin then shows system deactivated statement. A
flowchart of this stage is shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 6. Flowchart of the second stage operation
Fig. 7. Flowchart of the third stage operation
VI. Conclusion
This study presents a novel low-cost energy efficient
monitoring system which has the ability to be fully
automation system using open-source microcontrollers.
The proposed system implements the concept of parallel
processing by combining more than one microcontroller
to operate together in a master/slave approach. This
system outperformances most of the available monitoring
and automation systems in terms of scalability. The high
scalability comes from being able to add more slaves
microcontrollers to the system which means that more
locations are monitored and more functions are able to
get added to optimize the system work.
GSM communication technology is used in the system
given its wide coverage area and it is considered as one
of the most reliable and robust communication
technologies. As a part of future works, more functions
will be added to the system and more slave
microcontrollers will implement and evaluate the system
in real building not just as a prototype.
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Authors’ information
1
Ministry of Higher Education of Iraq / Al-Mustafa University College.
2
Ministry of Education of Iraq / Directorate of Baghdad Education
(Karkh3).
Hadi Jameel was born in Baghdad, Iraq in
1988. He received BSc degree from electrical
engineering department, Al Mustansiriya
University, Iraq in 2010. Received MSc degree
from Electronic and communication engineering
in Al Mustansiriya University, Iraq in 2013.
His research interests are Antenna, Wireless
Communications, Radar, Control System, and
Wireless sensor networks.
Husam Kareem was born in Baghdad, Iraq in
1986. He received BSc degree from computer
engineering department, University of Baghdad,
Iraq in 2008. Received MSc degree from
computer and communication systems
engineering in universiti Putra Malaysia,
Malaysia in 2014.
His research interests are Embedded systems,
Computer networks, and Wireless sensor networks.

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