Automatic control of street lights

Automatic control of street lights is deigned to turn on and turn of street lights automatically. This project check the amount of light. If light is 80 percent available, it automatically turn off street lights. But if amount of light is less than 80 percent, this project will automatically turn on street lights. one can also adjust it according to its requirement. Light sensor is used to detect intensity of light. PIC161F877A microcontroller is used interfaced with light sensor to sense amount of light available. Control signal is generated with the help of pic16f877a microcontroller after analyzing amount of light. Control signal generated by pic microcontroller is used to turn on transistor which in turn energize the relay coil and relay turn on the street light. I have used only one lamp in this project. Because this is just for demonstration purpose. To use it practically, you can use as many street lights as many you want to control through this automatic control of street lights.

Applications :

This project have many applications. For example, you are too much lazy to turn on or turn off your street light manually and you forget to turn it on or off daily. So you easily use this project to save your electricity and in return your money. In countries where load shedding is a big issue due to short fall in electricity and less in resources to generate electricity. In these countries, load shedding issue can be resolved too some extent by saving as much as you can. By using automatic control of street lights, we can save maximum amount of energy which is useful for your nation and also beneficial for you. Because it will reduce you electricity bill and in return save your money.

Circuit description :

Light sensor :

Light sensor is used to sense amount of light. There are many light sensors available in market but Light dependent resistor (LDR) is used as a light sensor. Because it is cheap in price, easily available in market and can be easily interfaced with microcontroller to sense intensity of light. LDR have property to change its resistance according to intensity of light. If light is high, LDR will have low resistance and if light is low, LDR will have high resistance. So microcontroller can easily read this resistance in the form of voltage and which can be back converted into proportional value of light by using a formula available in data sheet.I recommend you to have look in data sheet of LDR.

Relay interfacing with microcontroller :

As I have already mentioned above that microcontroller is used to analyze intensity of light and to generate control signal which in turn on or off transistor which in turn energize relay to turn street light on or off. NPN transistor is used as a switch and resistor at the base of transistor is used as current limiting resistor. Diode is used to avoid back emf voltage which may produce sparking across relay.

Embedded C Code

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Code for this project is written in Mikro C and 8Mhz crystal is used in this project.

int light;
void read_ldr()
{
unsigned int adc_value=0;
adc_value=ADC_Read(0);
light = 100 – adc_value/10.24;
if(light>=80) // SWITCH of the light when light is 80 percent
{
PORTB.F1=0;

}
else
{
PORTB.F1=1;

}
}
void main()
{
TRISB=0X00;
PORTB=0X00;
Adc_Init();

while (1)
{
read_ldr();
}
}