Low Cost Automation System for Smart Houses based on PIC Microcontrollers

Abstract

The high electricity bills of houses have triggered a significant research for solutions to mitigate this issue. The house automation systems offer everything necessary to put an end to these inconveniences as, most often, they incorporate a number of smart devices (microcontrollers and sensors). The presented work outlines the development of a microcontroller-based automation system of a solar smart house using automatic lighting and thermal comfort sensors (temperature, humidity) and safety functions (gas leakage, smoke detection). This system is based on PIC microcontrollers and is applied through the implementation of a complete algorithm. The program is written on Micro C, and in order to realize the control circuit and the simulation, the testing software made use of Proteus software which is freely available from the Internet. The control of temperature and air pollution was implemented using the PIC16F877A, while the light control was applied with the PIC18F4550. The hardware prototype was also provided to experiment on the designed control strategy. The results of this work allowed some conclusions to be reached and confirmed the benefits of this kind of automation systems.

Near-Zero-Energy Building Management Based on Arduino Microcontroller—On-Site Lighting Management Application

“…The PV installation used to feed the house is calculated using "PVsyst" software [18] based on real temperature and irradiation data of the Bou-Ismail site, the one-day autonomy and the predefined load profile of the home. This house is powered with a photovoltaic system of 3.2 kWp capacity, 12 kWh of Plomb-acid battery storage capacity and a 4 kW gridconnected inverter [19,20]. Figure 13 describes the PV-grid system with backup installed in UDES' solar house.…”

Indoor Lighting Study: case of UDES’ Solar Smart House Bou-Ismail-Algeria

“…Hence homes appear to be the cornerstone for reducing energy consumption in this sector; several works are particularly focused on optimization of the energy houses. Beside considering some architectural aspects in order to improve the thermal insulation of the houses, the installation of renewable energy sources on houses roof top along with an effective Home Energy Management System (HEMS) [2][3][4][5], which monitors and controls the energy consumed, can help in minimizing the energy consumption from the grid and increase the renewable energy consumption. In addition to the renewable energy sources and to go further in the reduction of the energy consumption in a house; optimization methods should be applied, such as: the use of low-consumption lamps and appliances [6][7], the integration of smart sockets that control the energy consumption of all home appliances [8] and the choice of the adequate lighting system [9].Home automation is also a modern way to associate the optimization of power consumption, the comfort and the security of the inhabitants [10,11].According to [12,13], lighting is a significant feature in the energy consumption of residential sector, a deep study of the light distribution in a surface is able to give the optimal choice of lighting devices and system architecture.…”