Automatic Room Light Controller with Bidirectional Visitor Counter

A visitors counter is a counter which simply count the number of visitors . A visitor is counted only 1 time per day.
Often we see visitor counters at stadium, mall, offices, class rooms etc. How they count the people and turn ON or OFF the light when nobody is inside? Today we are here with automatic room light controller project with bidirectional visitor counter by using Arduino Uno. It is very interesting project for hobbist.

Components

• Arduino UNO
• Relay (5v)
• Resisters
• IR Sensor module
• 16x2 LCD display
• Bread Board
• Connecting Wires
• Led
• BC547 Transistor

The project of “Digital visitor counter” is based on the interfacing of some components such as sensors, motors etc. with arduino microcontroller. This counter can count people in both directions. This circuit can be used to count the number of persons entering a hall/mall/home/office in the entrance gate and it can count the number of persons leaving the hall by decrementing the count at same gate or exit gate and it depends upon sensor placement in mall/hall. It can also be used at gates of parking areas and other public places.

This project is divided in four parts: sensors, controller, counter display and gate. The sensor would observe an interruption and provide an input to the controller which would run the counter increment or decrement depending on entering or exiting of the person. And counting is displayed on a 16x2 LCD through the controller.

When any one enters in the room, IR sensor will get interrupted by the object then other sensor will not work because we have added a delay for a while.

Circuit Explanation

There are some sections of whole visitor counter circuit that are sensor section, control section, display section and driver section.

Sensor section: In this section we have used two IR sensor modules which contain IR diodes, potentiometer, Comparator (Op-Amp) and LED’s. Potentiometer is used for setting reference voltage at comparator’s one terminal and IR sensors sense the object or person and provide a change in 

voltage at comparator’s second terminal. Then comparator compares both voltages and generates a digital signal at output. Here in this circuit we have used two comparators for two sensors. LM358 is used as comparator. LM358 has inbuilt two low noise Op-amp.

Control Section: Arduino UNO is used for controlling whole the process of this visitor counter project. The outputs of comparators are connected to digital pin number 14 and 19 of arduino. Arduino read these signals and send commands to relay driver circuit to drive the relay for light bulb controlling. If you find any difficulty in working with relay, check out this tutorial on arduino relay control to learn more about operating relay with Arduino.

Display section:  Display section contains a 16x2 LCD. This section will display the counted number of people and light status when no one will in the room.

Relay Driver section: Relay driver section consist a BC547 transistor and a 5 volt relay for controlling the light bulb. Transistor is used to drive the relay because arduino does not supply enough voltage and current to drive relay. So we added a relay driver circuit to get enough voltage and current for relay. Arduino sends commands to this relay driver transistor and then light bulb will turn on/off accordingly.

Visitor Counter Circuit Diagram

The outputs of IR Sensor Modules are directly connected to arduino digital pin number 14(A0) and 19(A5). And Relay driver transistor at digital pin 2. LCD is connected in 4 bit mode. RS and EN pin of LCD is directly connected at 13 and 12. Data pin of LCD D4-D7 is also directly connected to arduino at D11-D8 respectively. Rest of connections are shown in the below circuit diagram.

Code: 

#include
LiquidCrystal lcd(13,12,11,10,9,8);
#define in 14
#define out 19
#define relay 2
int count=0;
void IN()
{
    count++;
    lcd.clear();
    lcd.print("Person In Room:");
    lcd.setCursor(0,1);
    lcd.print(count);
    delay(1000);
}
void OUT()
{
  count--;
    lcd.clear();
    lcd.print("Person In Room:");
    lcd.setCursor(0,1);
    lcd.print(count);
    delay(1000);
}
void setup()
{
  lcd.begin(16,2);
  lcd.print("Visitor Counter");
  delay(2000);
  pinMode(in, INPUT);
  pinMode(out, INPUT);
  pinMode(relay, OUTPUT);
  lcd.clear();
  lcd.print("Person In Room:");
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  lcd.print(count);
}
void loop()
{
 
  if(digitalRead(in))
  IN();
  if(digitalRead(out))
  OUT();
 
  if(count<=0)
  {
    lcd.clear();
    digitalWrite(relay, LOW);
    lcd.clear();
    lcd.print("Nobody In Room");
    lcd.setCursor(0,1);
    lcd.print("Light Is Off");
    delay(200);
  }
 
  else
    digitalWrite(relay, HIGH);
 
}