International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Open Access

Survey Paper Vol.-6, Issue-11, Nov 2018 E-ISSN: 2347-2693

An Automated Power Conservation System (APCS) using Particle Photon

and Smartphone
Chandra Sekhar Sanaboina1*, Harish Bommidi2
1
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University College of Engineering, JNTUK – Kakinada, India
2
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University College of Engineering, JNTUK – Kakinada, India
*Corresponding Author: [email protected] Tel.: ++919885258544
Available online at: www.ijcseonline.org
Accepted: 15/Nov/2018, Published: 30/Nov/2018
Abstract— Nowadays, people use electricity in all aspects of their lives so that electricity consumption increases gradually.
There can be wastage of electricity due to various reasons, such as human negligence, daylighting, etc. Hence, conservation of
energy is the need of the day. This paper deals with the fabrication of an "Automated Power Conservation System (APCS)"
that has multiple benefits like saving on power consumption there by saving on electricity bills of the organization, eliminating
human involvement and manpower which is often required to manually toggle the lights and electrical devices on/off, and last
but most importantly conserve the precious natural resources by reducing electrical energy consumption. Two IR sensors are
used in this project and these two sensors are used for detecting the presence of a person in the classroom. When the existence
of the person is detected by the APCS it automatically turns on the fans and lights in that classroom and during the absence
they will be automatically turned off, thus paving the easiest way to conserve power. This hardware is integrated with the
Android app, where the user can get data on his smartphone regarding the number of fans and lights that are turned on at a
particular instance of time. The user can also switch on/off the fans and lights from anywhere in the world by using the
Android App.
Keywords— Internet of Things, Particle Photon, Android App, Thingspeak, Automated Power Conservation System

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 International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Vol.6(11), Nov 2018, E-ISSN: 2347-2693

I. INTRODUCTION II. LITERATURE SURVEY OF IOT AND AUTOMATION

An Automated Power Conservation System (APCS) is a The Internet of Things (IoT) conceptually embodies
system, which monitors and operates the electrical appliances intelligent visions of automating the day to day activities [1].
in accordance to the presence of a person in the classroom Ideally, loT will optimize our future routines with intelligent
and it can be accessed from a remote place through internet and robust systems that will make our life not only easy but
and an Android App (UI). (i.e,. APCS turns on/off the fans also fast based upon our preferences and priorities like
and lights in the classroom based on the presence of the morning alarms, coffee timing, medicine uptake etc. Its vast
people in the classroom). APCS also maintains the count of applications will make our travel arrangements intelligently,
the number of persons present in the classroom and the data by giving frequent updates and weather data. In short, loT
obtained is pushed on to the cloud. It can also generate the has the power to meet our every need before we even need to
report and give the status of electrical appliances (on/off) on realize what we want and will need. Interconnectedness and
a real-time basis. automation are the real power of loT solutions. A lot has not
only made our lives easier but also has lots of potentials to
APCS consists of a microcontroller for monitoring and
drive economic value and social change [2]. But still, 85% of
coordinating with sensors and appliances of a room. Here the
things still is unconnected and a security threat pervasive, for
Particle Photon Chip is used as a microcontroller. Particle
which industry has yet to conquer the real potential of loT.
Photon is a microcontroller with inbuilt Broadcom Wi-Fi
device which assists the photon to connect to the internet. Automation is a technology which enables the user to
The particle is connected with two IR sensors (INPUTS) and control a process or procedure with minimum human
Relay (OUTPUTS). A Web IDE (Integrated Development assistance[3]. Automation otherwise called as automatic
Environment) is used to program the particle photon. The control uses various control systems for operating equipment
program specifies a task to particle photon based on inputs such as switching on telephone networks, processes in the
read from the two sensors and uploads the data into Cloud. factories, stabilization of ships, aircraft etc., and heat treating
The admin can monitor these data from a remote place by ovens like boilers with very minimal or condensed human
using his/her smartphone via the internet. Android studio is intervention [4]. Some processes are partly automated but
used for developing Android App (UI). The IR sensors used some processes have been completely automated.
for detecting person entry/exit status and relay module are Automation covers applications range simple household
used for turn ON/OFF the electrical appliances. Moreover, thermostat control in air conditioning unit or thermostat
the user is also facilitated to operate the appliances remotely. controlling unit in a boiler to a large industrial control system
that can control tens of thousands of input as well as output
APCS saves unwanted power consumption of the
devices [5].
University or any other organization, eliminating human
involvement and manpower which is often required to One of the automation wings can be a home automation
manually switch on/off the lights and the electrical device. system that performs the operations of various home
appliances more expedient and saves energy [6]. Home
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section II
automation or building automation makes life very simple
explains Literature survey of the IoT and Automation.
nowadays and it also saves a lot of energy. It involves
Section III elucidates the proposed model along with the
automatic controlling of all electrical or electronic devices in
description of all the components used in the experiment.
homes or even remotely through wireless communication
Section IV describes the system design and implementation.
[7]. Centralized control of security systems, lighting
Section V deals with the algorithm and flowchart for APCS.
equipment, kitchen appliances, air conditioning units, heating
Section VI shows the Experimental setup. Section VII gives
devices, audio/video systems and all other equipment used in
the experimental results. Finally, Section VIII discusses the
home systems is possible with this system. Automation can
conclusion and future work.
also be extended to the universities wherein one can
automate the electrical appliances in the classrooms [8].
III. PROPOSED MODEL AND ITS COMPONENTS
The proposed model APCS is a power-efficient Wi-
Fi based intelligent automated system for a room that will
monitor and control the electrical appliances without the
human intervention. The model is being deployed in the
classrooms for conserving the power and preventing the
unwanted wastage of power. This system can work in two
modes namely Automatic mode and Manual mode which is
developed for our convenience. By default, the system will
work with automatic mode. This mode saves power from

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 International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Vol.6(11), Nov 2018, E-ISSN: 2347-2693

human negligence in situations like when persons leave the 4 lights and 4 fans. Ignoring the remaining factors for the
room without turning off the lights and fans. This mode wastage of power, this paper considers only one factor FOR
works THE WASTAGE OF POWER (I.E., HUMAN NEGLIGENCE).
Table 1: Wastage Of Power due to Human Negligence

Worst Average
Best Case
Case Case
(10%Negl
(90%Negli (50%Negli
igence)
gence) gence)

Wastage of
Power in
163.0368 90.576 18.1152
KWH(Units)

Utilization of
Power in
18.1152 90.576 163.0368
KWH(Units)

The calculations are based on the theoretical power

consumptions that a particular fan (60 stats) or a light (40
watts) will consume. It is not practically possible to
determine how much electricity will be wasted as negligence
because electricity wastage is directly proportional to human
negligence. Hence, this paper considered only three cases
(i.e., 90% negligence (Worst Case), 50% negligence
(Average Case) and 10% negligence(Best Case)) on a trial
basis and the results are tabulated as above. Each case that is
considered is based on the percentage of human negligence.
The table also depicts the power consumed if the appliances
are in full working condition versus the power wasted due to
human negligence. Practically speaking, human negligence
Figure 1: An Architecture of An Automated Power Conservation cannot be avoided and hence there is a need to conserve
System
power by fabricating or developing some automated
on the presence of the person and person count. As soon as a tools/devices. This is the principal motto behind the
person enters into the classroom the lights and fans are development of APCS. The calculations of power
automatically turned on and it also keeps track of the number consumption in our trail room which consists of 4 fans and 4
of persons present in the room. If the person count in the lights are elucidated in the following section. The
room reaches zero means it automatically turns off all the calculations are based on the worst case negligence (i.e., 90%
electrical appliances. In some situations, the user needs to turn negligence).
on/off electrical appliances manually. To cater to these needs
Calculation of Power Consumption of a trial room
APCS is built to operate in a manual mode wherein the user
can operate the electrical appliances in the room manually By definition, Power is defined as the amount of energy
from anywhere in the world using an android app. used per unit time and 1 watt = 1 Joule/sec
Figure 1 shows the Architecture of the proposed For tube light:
system. This system consisting of three parts mainly
Energy consumed is 40 Joules/sec (Since tube light is 40
Hardware consisting of sensors, relay module and particle
watts )
photon chip, User Interface (Android app) and Cloud which is
used to store the data on a real-time basis for which For 1 hour, Energy usage = 40*3600=144000J.
Thingspeak is being used.
1 standard unit of electricity i.e. 1 kwh= 3600000Joules.
The most commonly known cause of energy wastage is
human negligence. In most cases, humans tend to forget to So that would be 4% of a single unit, or in other words
turn off the electrical appliances as they left from Classroom. lighting of the tube light for 25 hours would cost you 1 unit
A smart room should be able to automatically turn off the of electricity. So it would be 0.0513 kWh of single 40W tube
lights and fans when it detects no person in the room. Table 1 light power usage.
gives a clear picture of how much power is being wasted in a
month for a single room (i.e., trail room in this paper) having

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 International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Vol.6(11), Nov 2018, E-ISSN: 2347-2693

For 30 days working at 8 hours per day and 90% human be simple (just a few lines of code), or very complex (may
negligence vary from thousands to lakhs of code). The microcontroller
interacts with the outside world using pins. Pins are the input
Power wastage = (30*8*90)/100
and output parts of the microcontroller that are exposed on the
= 216*0.0513 (for one tube light) sides of particle device. GPIO pins can be hooked to sensors
or buttons to listen to the world, or they can be hooked to
= 216*0.0513*4 (for four tube lights)
lights and buzzers to act upon the world. There are pins for
= 44.3232 Serial/UART communication and a pin for resetting particle
device. Figure 2 shows the top view of the Particle Photon.
For fan:
Energy consumed is 60 Joules/sec (Since fan is 60 watts )
For 1 hour, Energy usage = 60*3600=2160000J.
1 standard unit of electricity i.e. 1 kwh= 3600000Joules.
So that would be 6% of a single unit, or in other words
lighting of the fan for 24 hours would cost you 1 unit of
electricity. So it would be 0.1374 kWh of single 60W fan
power usage.
For 30 days working at 8 hours per day and 90% human
negligence
Power wastage = (30*8*90)/100
= 216*0.1374 (for one fan)
= 216 * 0.1374 * 4 (for four fans)
= 118.7136
Figure 2: Particle Photon Chip
Hence, the total wastage of power for 4 tube lights and 4
fans is given by sum of wastage of power for 4 tube lights + As shown in Figure 2 particle photon has 6 Analog
wastage of power for 4 fans I/O ports with 2 port for RX and TX, one DAC ( Digital to
Analog Converter), and 8 Digital I/O port with inbuilt LED at
Total wastage = 44.3232 + 118.7136 D7 port. The particle has its own cloud where the data in our
= 163.0368 particular photon can be accessed through the Internet. Also
having its own cloud, the data can be accessed by IFTTT and
The same value is given in Table 1 under wastage of power use it for action and trigger purpose to send an email and
with 90% negligence. The remaining values given in the table receive command through user easily.
are self-explanatory.
Features
3.1.Hardware used in APCS
• Broadcom BCM43362 Wi-Fi chip
The hardware part of APCS consists of sensors, Relay
module, and microcontroller. Sensors read data from the real • 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
world and send to the microcontroller. The microcontroller • 1MB flash, 128KB RAM
processes the data that is received and then controls
appliances through Relay module. • On-board RGB status LED (ext. drive provided)
A brief description of various components used in APCS • 18 Mixed-signal GPIO and advanced peripherals
are given below • Real-time operating system (FreeRTOS)
3.1.1 Particle Photon 3.1.2 Two-Channel Relay module
Particle combines a powerful ARM Cortex M3 A relay is an electrically operated switch. Many
microcontroller with a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip in a tiny relays use an electromagnet to mechanically operate a switch,
thumbnail-sized module called the PØ (P-zero). The but other operating principles are also used, such as solid-
microcontroller is the brain of particle device. It runs the state relays. Relays are used where it is necessary to control a
program and tells hardware prototype what to do. Unlike a circuit by a low-power signal (with complete electrical
computer, it can only run one application (often called isolation between control and controlled circuits), or where
firmware or an embedded application). This application can

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 International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Vol.6(11), Nov 2018, E-ISSN: 2347-2693

several circuits must be controlled by one signal. Since relays 3.2 Mobile Application
are switches, the terminology applied to switches applied to
The mobile application is developed under the Android
relays. Figure 3 shows the physical view of Two Channel
platform. It works on all Android mobile phones which are
Relay Module. A relay can be operated in two states:
enabled by the internet. This application requires
Normally - open (NO) contacts connect the circuit when authorization for accessing or controlling of particle device.
the relay is activated; the circuit is disconnected when the
The mobile application fetches the data from the
relay is inactive. It is also called a FORM A contact or make
Thingspeak
contact.
Normally - closed (NC) contacts disconnect the circuit
when the relay is activated; the circuit is connected when the

Figure 3: 2-Channel Relay module

relay is inactive. It is also called FORM B contact or break
contact.
Features
• Number of Relays: 2
• Control signal: TTL level
• Rated load: 7A/240VAC 10A/125VAC 10A/28VDC Figure 5: Mobile Application for APCS
3.1.3 IR Obstacle Sensor the cloud which is already uploaded by the particle photon
and also sends commands to the particle device. The user
Infrared Obstacle Sensor Module has a built-in IR
interface for the application is designed in a way that enables
transmitter and IR receiver that sends out IR energy and looks
both monitoring and control field from the device. The
for reflected IR energy to detect the presence of any obstacle
Mobile Application Interface is shown in Figure 5
in front of the sensor module. Figure 4 shows the IR Obstacle
sensor. The module has an onboard potentiometer that lets the 3.3 Thingspeak
user adjust the detection range. The sensor has a very good
Thingspeak is a web-based open API IoT
and stable response even in ambient light or in complete
information platform that can store the sensor data of a wide
darkness. Infrared Photodiodes are different from normal
variety of IoT applications [9]. It is also used to combine
photodiodes as they detect only infrared radiation. When the
different varieties of sensor data for analysis and thus helps
IR transmitter emits radiation, it reaches the object and some
the user in making the right decisions. The data from
of the radiation reflects back to the IR receiver. Based on the
Thingspeak can be outputted in the graphical format at the
intensity of the reception by the IR receiver, the output of the
web level. Internet helps in the communication of Thingspeak
sensor is defined
and other devices. It could analyze, retrieve, save/store,
observe and work on the sensed data from the devices such as
Raspberry-pi, Arduino, particle photon, Intel Galileo etc., to
the sensors.
Thingspeak helps in a sensor based logging
applications, social networking of objects/ things with
updated status and location tracing applications.
Alternatively, It can also be used in home automation
products that were connected to the internet. The primary
feature of the Thingspeak functionality is the term "channel"
Figure 4: IR Obstacle Sensor
that have various fields for defining the status of varied

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 International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Vol.6(11), Nov 2018, E-ISSN: 2347-2693

sensed data, location and data. The data from the Things V. ALGORITHM AND FLOWCHART FOR APCS
speak can be processed and analyzed only after creating the
The algorithmic approach for APCS was given below for
channels. The data that is stored in the Thingspeak can be
better understanding of the user. The Particle.publish()
utilized for visualization purpose using MATLAB and can
method uploads count data to the Thingspeak cloud for every
respond to the data with tweets and other forms of alerts also.
event occurs.
It also provides a feature to create a public based channel to
analyze and estimate it through the public. All these activities Algorithm 1: An Automated Power Conservation System
mentioned above are features of a Cloud and hence
Thingspeak is treated as a cloud. Input: Two IR sensor inputs IR1 and IR2
The IoT Helps to bring all things together and Output: Outputs light and fan via Relay module
permits us to communicate with our very own things and even Initialization: count  0
more curiously allows objects/things to interact with other
1. Loop
‘things’.
2. if IR1 == HIGH then
IV. SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION 3. while 15sec completes do
The implementation of the proposed system (APCS) 4. if IR2==HIGH then
is shown in Figure 6. It shows the connectivity of various 5. count++
devices to particle photon chip. IR and Relay devices get 6. particle. publish(count) ;
power from GND and +5V pins from Particle device. The IR 7. end
sensor is usually used for obstacle detection but in APCS it is
8. end
used for detecting the direction of motion. It shows how the
two IR sensors are placed at the entrance of the room. The 9. end
phase difference between the readings of the two sensors can 10. if IR2==HIGH then
be used to detect the directions of the movement. The particle 11. while 15sec completes do
photon is continuously reading both the sensors values. The 12. if IR1==HIGH then
person while moving in or out of the room will pass through 13. count -- ;
these sensors one by one. If the IR1 sensor, gives +5V before 14. particle. publish(count) ;
the IR2 sensor then the person is moving IN the room. If IR2
sensor gives +5V before the IR1 sensor then the person is 15. end
moving OUT of the room. Whenever a person is detected 16. end
entering or leaving the room the count is incremented or 17. end
decremented respectively. Thus we can know the number of 18. if count <= 0 then
persons available inside the room at any moment and can 19. lightLOW;
check whether the room is empty or occupied. Accordingly, 20. fanLOW;
APCS switch on or off the electrical appliances.
21. else
22. lightHIGH;
23. fanHIGH;
24. end
25. EndLoop
4.1 Flow Chart
Figure 7 gives the flowchart of APCS while it is
operating in Automatic mode. Initially, both the sensors are
waiting for obstacle detection if the IR1 sensor detects signal
first then 15sec after the IR2 sensor detects signal. It means
person entered the room so count variable increments and
count upload into the Thingspeak. if the count equals to zero
the microcontroller turns off the lights and fans. If the IR2
detects first then IR1 means person left the room so count
decrements. Every action, the particle will upload data into
the cloud.
Figure 6: Implementation of Automated Power Conservation
System

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 International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Vol.6(11), Nov 2018, E-ISSN: 2347-2693

interacts with the system by simply logging into the app with
help of the unique user id and password.
VII. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The proposed system APCS has been tested successfully
for both manual and automatic operation of electrical
appliances based on the presence of the persons in the
classroom. APCS can be treated as a novel approach to
conserving power and it is calculated that almost 15% of
power can be saved per month. Conserving power has a
direct impact on money savings also. Even though the APCS
is developed keeping in view of the university, it is also
proved that it is best-suited home automation and industrial
automation where one can conserve more power from being
wasted.
VIII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
This paper proposes a low cost, secure, ubiquitously
accessible, remotely controlled solution. The approach
discussed in the paper is novel and has achieved the target to
control electrical appliances remotely using the Wi-Fi
technology to connect system parts, satisfying user needs and
requirements. Looking at the current scenario we have
chosen the Android platform so that most of the people can
get the benefit. The technology is easy to use and can benefit
Figure 7: Flowchart of APCS while operating in an Automatic the naive people that have no technical background. The
mode proposed system is better from the scalability and flexibility
point of view than the commercially available automation
The particle photon continuously reading values from systems.
sensors and uploading into Thingspeak using webhook which
is already configured in particle web. The mobile application In future proposals can be made to build a cross-
gets these data from Thingspeak using JSON objects. platform system that can be deployed on various platforms
like iOS, Windows etc. This System can be extended to a
VI. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP number of electrical appliances. INPUTS and OUTPUTS can
be extended by using Basic Logic gates. Many other devices
like Security cameras can be controlled, allowing the user to
observe activity around a room. Security systems can include
motion sensors that will detect any kind of unauthorized
movement and notify the user. The scope of this project can
be expanded to the entire organization but not for a single
room.
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Authors Profile
Chandra Sekhar Sanaboina is presently
pursuing Ph.D. under the guidance of Prof.
Pallamsetty Sanaboina from Andhra
University. He obtained his B.Tech. In
Electronics and Computer Science
Engineering in 2005 and M.Tech in
Computer Science and Engineering from
Vellore Institute of Technology in 2008. He
has over 10 years of teaching experience and currently working as
Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer science and
Engineering, JNTUK Kakinada. His areas of interests include
Wireless Sensor Networks, Internet of Things, Machine Learning
and Artificial Intelligence.
Harish Bommidi completed his M.Tech in
Computer Science and Engineering from
UECK, JNTUK Kakinada in the year 2017.
He has completed his B.Tech in Computer
Science and Engineering, from Vignan
Institute of Information Technology,
Duvvada, Visakhapatnam. He has done his
M.Tech Project under the guidance of
Chandra Sekhar Sanaboina, Assistant
Professor in the Department of Computer
Science and Engineering, JNTUK Kakinada. Presently he is
working for TCS, Bangalore as Assistant Systems Engineer. His
Areas of interests include Wireless SensorNetworks, Internet of
Things.

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