Remote Control of Electrical Appliances Using GSM Networks: Abah O. Sunday Visa M. Ibrahim Abah Joshua
Remote Control of Electrical Appliances Using GSM Networks: Abah O. Sunday Visa M. Ibrahim Abah Joshua
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Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, School of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Federal University of Technology Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria. 2 Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, School of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Federal University of Technology Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria 3 Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. Abstract For over two decades the need for an improved method for transferring dialing information for control purpose through the telephone network was recognized. The traditional method of Dial Pulse signaling was not only slow and susceptible to distortion over long wire loops but also requires a direct current (DC) path through the communication channel. This paper presents a Global System for Mobile Telecommunication (GSM) network based system which can be used to remotely send streams of 8 bit data for control of electrical appliances. Furthermore, this paper used the Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) function of the phone, and builds a microcontroller based circuit for appliances control to demonstrate wireless data communication. Practical result obtained showed an appreciable degree of accuracy, repeatability of the system and friendliness through the use of a microcontroller. Keywords Communication, DTMF, GSM, Networks, Microcontroller.
I.
INTRODUCTION
Many electrical appliances such as the television set, radio, audio player, air conditional, heater, microwave oven are equipped with controllers that allow the user to turn them on or off from a remote site over some distance within the region that can be covered by the transmitter. Some of the existing techniques include the Radio Frequency (RF) remotes, and Infra Red (IR) remotes (Li-jun, 2007) and (Mohammed, 2005). Both working independently on RF investigated different ways of wireless communication and adopted an appropriate system to send streams of data to control any electronic instrument. Brian Millier (http//www.google/Embedtronics) in the Atmels application journal described how he designed an RF controlled irrigation system for his house. He used the HT12E and HT12D ICs with Abacoms transmitter/receiver pair and Atmels AVR controller chip. Simlarly, John et al. (1989) used similar technology in the journal parasitic Harvesting in Shoes. The HT12E encoder and a Ming transmitter were used to provide RF signal in a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system. The IR system follows the line of site approach of actually pointing the remote at the device being controlled; this makes communication to be impossible over obstacles and barriers. To overcome this, a signaling scheme utilizing voice frequency tones is employed. This scheme is known as Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF), Touch-Tone or simply tone dialing. As its acronym suggests, a valid DTMF signal is the sum of two tones, one from a low group (697-941Hz) and the other from a high group (1209-1633Hz) with each group containing four individual tones. DTMF signaling plays an important role in distributed communication systems such as multiuser mobile radio (Zarlink, 1983). It is natural in the two way radio environment since it slips nearly into the center of the voice spectrum, has excellent noise immunity and it has a highly integrated method of implementation currently available. It is directly compactable with telephone signals simplifying automatic phone batch system. The development of silicon implemented switch capacitors, sample-1 filters, marks the current generation of DTMF receiver technology. Initially single chip band Pass Filters were combined with currently available decoders enabling a two chip receiver design. A further advance in integration has merged both functions onto a single chip allowing DTMF receivers to be realized in minimal space of a low cost. Most Nokia phones have F-Bus and M-Bus connections that can be used to connect a phone to Personal Computers (PC) or in this case, a microcontroller. The connection can be used for controlling just about all functions of the phone. In this paper, phones using GSM network interfaced with microcontroller is used to remotely control electrical appliances thus overcoming distance barrier problem and communication over obstacles with very minimal or no interference but is solely network dependent.
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1.1
System Description
Micro controller
Load
Figure 2: Functional Block of the System The diagrams in figure 1 and figure 2 describe the overall system. A ringing voltage detector signals the microcontroller of an incoming call. The microprocessor after the prescribed number of rings closes the answer relay engaging the proper terminating impedance. A two to four wire converter splits bidirectional audio signal from the balanced telephone line into separate single ended transmit and receive paths. Received audio signal is switched to the DTMF receiver through the cross point switch. Upon receiving a valid DTMF signal, the microcontroller is alerted by the rising edge of Delayed Steering Output (STd). The microcontroller then checks for a valid password sequence and decode subsequent commands. A command can be entered to put the system into remote control mode, subsequent data is transmitted to a selected device until a reset command is entered. The state indicators represent the binary equivalent of the hexadecimal. An infinite variety of devices could be controlled by such a system, the spectrum of which is limited only by the ability to provide appropriate interfacing. This system can also be the heart of a DTMF intercom system allowing communication, phone batching and remote control from various household locations.
II.
2.1
DESIGN FRAMEWORK
System Design The design process is divided into two; Hardware and Software designs.
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2.2
Software Design The control program is developed in assembly language using the 8051 instruction set. The flowchart for the program is given figure 3.
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Start
Input Code
Initialize Phone
ON/OFF Code?
No
End
Figure 3: Control Program Flowchart
III.
DESIGN CALCULATION
3.1 Steering and Guard Time Circuit Operation for Decoder Section tGTP < tGTA ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eqn. 3.1 RP = R1R2(R1+R2) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ eqn. 3.2 Operating at tGTP > tGTA ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eqn. 3.3 Typically, VTst = 0.5VDD ---------------------------------------------------------- eqn. 3.4
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tGTP
The actual value of VDD as measured with digital multi-meter is 4.9V compared to the 5V of the Microcontroller. The drop of 0.1V may be as a result of the drop across load resistances. 3.2 Differential Input Configuration of MT8870 The input arrangement of the MT8870 provides a differential input operational amplifier as well as a bias source (Vref) which is used to bias the input at mid rail. Provision is made for connection of a feedback resistor to the op-amp output (GS) for adjustment of gain. C1 C2 R1 R4 R5 R3 R2 R3 2R3=56K Voltage Gain Therefore the op-amp has unity voltage gain. 3.3 Input Impedance ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eqn. 3.7
The design of DTMF receiving system can generally be broken down into three functional blocks. The first consideration is the interface to the transmission medium. This consists of few simple components to adequately configure the MT8870 Input stage or may be as complex as some form of demodulation, multiplexing or analogue switching system. The second functional block is the DTMF receiver itself. This is the receiving systems interface parameter can be optimized for specific signal condition delivered from the front end interface. The third and most widely varying function is the output control logic. This control is responsible for handling system protocols and adaptively varying the tone receivers parameter to adjust for changing signal conditions. From the calculation above, the input voltage gain is unity. With the unity gain the MT8870 will accept maximum signal level of 1dBm into 600. The lowest DTMF frequency that must be detected is approximately 685Hz. Allowing 0.1dB of attenuation at 685Hz, the required input time constant is derived from: ------------------------------------- eqn. 3.8 Where M ( ) dB = Amplifier gain in decibel = radian frequency Therefore;
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Choosing R = 220K gives a high input impedance (440 less in the pass band) and
. Using a
standard value, C is chosen to be 10nF to achieve a unity gain in the pass band. Rf is chosen to be equal to R that is; Rf = R, Ra and Rb are biasing resistors. The choice of Ra is not critical and could be set at 68K say. Bias resistor Ra adds a zero to the noninverting path through the differential amplifier but has no effect on the inverting path. The zero can be exactly cancelled by the added pole due to Rb, if Rb is chosen as
3.4
Interfacing the System to Loads A valid DTMF is received via connections with the HFconnector of the phone, this signal is being decoded and the output is feed into the port of the microcontroller. Software developed takes over control of loads through the use of electromechanical switch (relays). The relay is connected to the controller through an NPN transistor (BC337) low power transistor acting as a switch and current driver to the relay with diodes across the relay terminals to prevent backward curr ent flow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- eqn. 3.9
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4.0
The circuit design was simulated with Protus ISIS Professional to test the output of various stages for desired output which also gave almost the same performance after the construction and connected with different load specifically electric bulbs, fans, and kettle which were effectively controlled.
5.0
CONCLUSION
A robust, simple and low cost automatic control system for electrical appliances using GSM network which is not limited by distance barrier and obstacle has been successfully designed and constructed. Simple components which are cheap and readily available were used in this design. Though the project exhibits a satisfactory performance, there is need to improve on the design so as to obtain a better performance. That is, a more sophisticated system. This can be achieved by the use of high power switching components like thyristors, photo triac and SCRs for industrial heavy load switching that is dangerous for human-being also improvement can be made to achieve the feedback control.
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