Micro Link Information Technology College

Department of Computer Engineering

Project title: Radio frequency based home automation

Group Members Id Number

1.Asegid Leweyehu 1461/15
2. Belay Workye 1844/15
3. Kidus Muleta 1329/15
4. Samuel Tilahun 1881/15
5. Yonas Reta 1680/15

Advisor: Mr Abinet

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Table of contents

TITLE PAGE No.

.ABSTRACT---------------------------------------------------------------------3

1.INTRODUCTION-------------------------------------------------------------4

.1. BACKGROUND----------------------------------------------------------4

1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT---------------------------------------------4

1.3. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES---------------------------------------------5

.4.MOTIVATION--------------------------------------------------------------5

.5. SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS---------------------------------------------6

2. LITERATURE REVIEW-----------------------------------------------------7

2.1. Home Automation---------------------------------------------------------7

2.1.1 Description of Home Automation---------------------------------------7

2.2. Benefits of Home Automation----------------------------------------------8

2.3 Future of Home Automation-------------------------------------------------8

3. METHODOLOGY---------------------------------------------------------------9

3.1. Remote Controlled Home Automation System----------------------------9

3.1 1 Reasons for using RF------------------------------------------------------------13

4.WORKING PRINCIPLE---------------------------------------------------------------14

4.1. RF based Home Automation System without Microcontroller-------------------------------15

4.1.1. 4.1.1 Required materials-------------------------------------------------------------------------15

5. COST BREAKDOWN---------------------------------------------------------------------------------16

6. PROJECT PLAN-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------17

7. REFERENCES---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18

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ABSTRACT
The main object of this project is to develop a home automation system with a four button key
fob transmitter by using RF (Radio Frequency) technology.

Nowadays, houses are gradually shifting from normal switches to centralized control system,
involving a remote control transmitter. This technology is not only easy to use but also helps to
prevent missuses of energy. Remote control (key fob) transmitter is small and very light weight,
which will work from a decent distance.

It helps elderly people to control switches from anywhere up to 75 feet. This four button key fob
transmitter is also very productive for commercial uses in Industrial and medical systems.
Remote controlled home automation system provides a simpler solution with RF technology.

This project can be upgraded by using GSM modem, which can control home appliances by
sending an SMS through a mobile or a computer. Benefit of using this technology is there will
not be any range limitation compared to Radio Frequency technology.

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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND

Home Automation is the housing extension of building automation system. This system is
actually automating the residential activity. The trendiness of home automation has increased
tremendously in recent years for the reason of higher usability and simplicity by using remote
control (key fob), smart phones and tablet connectivity (through Wi-Fi, GSM, Bluetooth, Zig bee
etc.) Home systems like light, fan, air conditioner, air heater by using different switches in
different places. Therefore, people, especially adult people need to put a lot of afford to switch
all those components separately and with enough power to press. Those switches are mostly
made very unsafe way and it is also asking more energy to put. These problems could be solved
if home automation system would be used.

1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT

Nowadays, conventional power sockets located in different parts of the house makes it difficult
for the user to go near them to operate. It also becomes more difficult for the elderly people or
physically handicapped to do so. Many home systems like air heater, fan, lights and air
conditioners are operated by using different switches located in different places in the house. It
becomes a tedious process and consumes a lot of time to switch all those components separately.

Also people are normally lazy to wake up from the comfort of beds or couches to go and open
doors or windows when the need arises. As a result, as homes are getting smarter people need a
centralized control system from where they can comfortably control almost everything ranging
from water heaters, lights, switches, air conditioners, doors etc.

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1.3.AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Home automation system has different kinds like, remote control home automation, mobile
phone home automation. Aim of this project is to demonstrate an unostentatious Home
automation system that apprehends an outlying key fob controller and home machineries (here
we will try to show that by using some RF). The home appliances to be controlled include lights,
switches, air conditioners and also doors & windows.

Here, the project is based on remote control home automation system, which could help to save
energy like electricity and lots of physical strength. It could be secure, flexible, help to prevent
power and more accurate outcomes. Most of houses in the cities of the developed countries now
using remote control, mobile or touch screen based home automation system to prevent energy
and ensure adequate safety.

To accomplish the project, here first of all, trying to discuss about the research has been done
based on Home Automation and all related hardware.

 A Remote Control transmitter has been used to transfer signals.

 Safe time
 To increase security
 To reduce energy

1.4. MOTIVATION
The simple is just to make life easier. We invented TV remote controls so we did not have to
out of the chair to change the channel. Some people now own complex media systems that
require the owner to press 10 different buttons own 5 remote just to watch Oprah.
Press one button own a remote control and have it dim the light, set the volume level and start
playing a movie and music which you desire. Not have the sprinklers turn on if it is just rain.
Get emails sent to you at work or own you cell phone if a motion detector or security system
is tripped while out of the house. Get emails sent to you with the caller ID information of a
call received at your house when out. Automatically turn the light on in the when the garage
door goes up and its sun down. Automatically turn the front porch light on half-hour before

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sun down every day( and automatically adjust for daylight savings). Automatically close the
garage doors every night.
Automatically turn on holiday light at specific times(all at ones). The full list is limited to
imagination and a family’s life style.

1.5. SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

A Remote Control transmitter is used to transfer signals to a receiver. After receiving the
signals from the Key fob Transmitter the receiver controls the system by turning on-off some
different home appliances (as example, lights, heater, oven etc.).

Its limitations include;

 Failure to work within a long distance range. The transmitter being used can only work
from the distance of 25-30 meters. That means, it can only control living room appliances
from very little distance.
 It’s also less secure since anyone who gets hold of the Keyfob can access and control the
system.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Automation is very famous thing for today's world. Nowadays, humans are trying to control
everything automatically without any physical efforts. Basic task of this system is to turn on and
off different home appliances.

2.1 Home Automation

Home Automation includes control of lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning,
appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems for providing convenience,
comfort, energy efficiency and safety security.

2.1.1 Description of Home Automation

Home automation refers to the conduct of computer and information technology to monitor
home appliances and features.. Home automation is obtained for motives of ease, security
and energy efficiency.

In present construction in industrialized countries, most houses are depending on wire for
electrical power, telephones, TV cable or antenna, and doorbell (home automation) Though,
most of household tasks are automated by the development of specialized machineries. As
example, automatic washing machines are developed to reduce the physical labour of
washing clothes and water heaters attenuated the labour essential for bathing.

As the number of controllable instruments in the home rises, interconnection and

communication becomes a necessary and wished characteristic. For example, a heater can
transmit a discrete message when it requires cleaning or a fridge when it wants service.

Houses will become "intelligent" and will dispatch signals or signs to the controller when
any movement happens inside. In case there is no one supposed to be home and the alarm
system is adjusted, the system could deliver signal towards the proprietor, or the police, or
an emergency number.

In instinctive installations, it may be as expansive as rotation of the lights when a person

admits into the room. In commencing installations, houses can intuition not only the
appearance of a person inside but indicate the person and apparently set adequate lighting,
temperature, sound levels or TV channels, acceptance the account of the day, the time of
day, and other multiplicators.

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Simple examples of Home Automation are like, using of a remote control to turn on and off
a light across the room or unlocking the front or back door as you pull into the driveway.
Rotation of your home sprinkler system by using your mobile phone device or logging in
from your computer at work to check and view your home security cameras are also
examples of using home automation. Home automation includes everything that provides
you remote or automatic control of the electronic components inside it.

2.2. Benefits of Home Automation

Home automation has many advantages; these include;

 Add safety though appliance and lighting control

 Secures home through automated door locks
 Increases awareness through security cameras
 Increases convenience through temperature adjustment
 Saves time

2.3. Future of Home Automation

The new base in home automation is an android smart phone. Home automation equipment
recently use existing home Wi-Fi networks. But very soon there will be some gadgets like
google glass. Google Glass is a very exceptional device which could be worn like glass but it
will provide a screen over the right eye. That screen is controlled by voice command and by
touching an intelligent touchpad on the right side. It will connect via Bluetooth or connect
to Wi-Fi to a smart phone device and plays Google Glass applications.

There is another project coming in the Home Automation department is named Ivee which
looks like an alarm clock. This alarm clock can talk with the operator, it can take order, and
it can control some home appliance. As example, if anyone asks about the weather to ivee
and if ivee is connected with Wi-Fi then it can tell and show you the total forecast. Ivee
voice is the first multi-room assistant for the home that lets one connect and control your
favorite smart devices and services. It also can trigger on and off the light and other home
appliances like television, radio, light, air-conditioner etc. Some other different kinds of
Home Automation projects are ongoing to improve and make easy the living of people.

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3. METHODOLOGY
As already explained in previous parts, home automation is a smart home maintenance system
with intelligence, safety and luxurious home system. This procedure helps to provide a
comfortable, user friendly home system and also reduces the cost of energy and utility. This
home system also helps the elders to sustain with the new technologies; it helps them to use all
home appliances with little effort.

3.1 Remote Controlled Home Automation System

In this procedure a remote control console can control all sorts of home appliances according
to the user's choice. It can be a mobile phone or any ordinary remote control consoles like a
key fob. It can transfer signal through different ways like RF system, GSM technology, Zig
Bee etc. For this project a RF (Radio Frequency) system has been used.

3.1 1 Reasons for using RF

Wireless Home automation technologies represent a system to utilize home appliances with
more ease and less efforts. Remote control system actually provides the cheapest way to
utilize those facilities. By the use of remote control technology, user easily can get the
facility through a less expansive device like a cheap mobile phone set or a cheap key fob
transmitter.

Considering the other sources, it is more comfortable to carry and easy to control from
anywhere. It helps to enhance the flexibility and security. For example, if the user gets a
message or signal by saying there is something wrong or an intrusion then he can check the
situation through video cameras. Another example could be, turning on any home appliances
like heater, computer from outside the house or from any distances. Through this technology
one can listen the music system which is playing inside the house, user can connect with
personal computer to collect some important files or it could be helpful to get a text when
any home appliances need to check or change. High flexibility, geographical distance and
good scalability properties are the most common reason to make remote-control system
suitable for all sorts of users.

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4.WORKING PRINCIPLE

4.1. RF based Home Automation System without Microcontroller

Home Automation has always been a hot buzzing topic to learn or to work on. It is really cool to
control AC appliances wirelessly. There are lots of ways to do this and imagination is the limit.
In this project we will learn the most simple and easy way to build a Wireless Home Automation
Project in which we can toggle AC loads by using 433 MHz RF transmitter and receiver module.
This project does not involve any microcontroller; hence no programming is required and can be
developed on a breadboard.

4.1.1 Required materials

 433 MHz RF Transmitter and Receiver

 HT12D Decoder IC
 HT12E Encoder IC
 5V Relay Module (2Nos)
 Push on Push Off Switch (2 Nos)
 1M ohm, 47K ohm Resistor
 7805 Voltage Regulator
 9V Battery (2Nos)
 PCB Board (2Nos)
 Connecting wire

433MHz RF Transmitter and Receiver Module:

Let me give brief intro to these RF modules before getting into the project. The term RF stands
for “Radio Frequency”. A RF transceiver module will always work in a pair that is it needs a
Transmitter and Receiver to send and Send data. A transmitter can only send information and a
Receiver and can only receive it, so data can always be sent from one end to another and not the
other way around.

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433MHz RF Transmitter and Receiver Module

The Transmitter module consists of three pins namely Vcc, Din and ground as shown above. The
Vcc pin has a wide range input voltage from 3V to 12V. The transmitter consumes a minimum
current of 9mA and can go as high as 40mA during transmission. The center pin is the data pin to
with the signal to be transmitted is sent. This signal is then modulated using the ASK (Amplitude
Shift Keying) and then sent on air at a frequency of 433MHz. The speed at which it can transmit
data is around 10Kbps.

The Receiver module has four pins namely Vcc, Dout, Linear out and Ground as shown above.
The Vcc pin should be powered with a regulated 5V supply. The operating current of this
module is less than 5.5mA. The pins Dout and Linear out is shorted together to receive the 433
MHz signal from air. This signal is then demodulated to get the data and is sent out through the
data pin.

Need of Encoder and Decoders:

The RF modules can also function without the need of Encoder and Decoder modules. Simply
power on both the modules with the corresponding voltage mentioned above. Now, make the Din
pin on transmitter high and you will find the Dout pin on receiver also goes high. But, there is a
big drawback in this method. You can have only one button on the sender side and one output on

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the receiver side. This will not help in building better projects, so we employ the encoder and
decoder modules.

The HT12D and HT12E are 4-data bit encoder and decoder modules. This means that we can
make (2^4 = 16) 16 different combinations of inputs and outputs. These are 18 pin IC’s which
can operate between 3V to 12V input power supply. As said they have 4-data bit and 8-addresss
bit, these 8 address bits has to be set same on both the encoder and decoder to make them work
as a pair.

Out of the 4-data bit we will use only two in this project for demonstration purpose. You can use
all four and control four AC Appliances with the same circuit. You just have to add two more
Relay modules.

5V Relay Module:

As mentioned earlier, we will be using two 5V relay module to control the AC loads. The term
“5V” here represents the voltage required to trigger the relay. The 5V relay module used in this
project is shown below.

Our circuit operates at 5V and we need something to control 220V AC load, this is where a relay
comes handy. This relay when triggered with 5V will toggle an electromechanical switch; this
electromechanical switch is capable of candling 220V AC up to 10A current. Hence, our AC
load can be connected to the terminals of the relay.

We can also build this circuit without using a relay module. In that case we would have to use an
additional transistor like BC547 and drive it using a current limiting resistor to its base.

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Circuit Diagram and Explanation:

There are two circuit Diagrams for this RF controlled Home Automation System, one for RF
Transmitter as RF remote control for Home Appliances and one for RF Receiver where AC loads
are connected. We have previously explained the RF Transmitter and Receiver circuit in detail.

RF Transmitter Circuit:

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RF Receiver Circuit:

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As you can see the transmitter Circuit consists of the Encoder IC and the Receiver circuit
consists of the Decoder IC. Since the transmitter does not need a regulated 5V we have directly
powered it with a 9V battery. Whereas in the receiver side we have used a 7805 +5V voltage
regulator to regulate 5V from the 9V battery.

Notice that the Address bits A0 to A7 on both the Encoder and Decoder IC are grounded. This
means that they are both kept at address 0b00000000. This way they both share the same address
and they will act as a pair.

The data pins D10 and D11 (Pin 12 and 13) are connected to switches on the Encoder side and to
Relay modules on the decoder side. Based on the position of switch on the encoder side the
information will be transferred to decoder and the corresponding light will get toggled.

The two relay modules are powered by the 5V supply provided by the 7805 Regulator and the
input pin is connected to the decoder module. The loads are connected through the Relay module
so that only when the relay is closed the connection to the load will be complete.

Note: Using a 9V battery to power the receiver set-up might not work properly since the battery
is not powerful to supply enough current for relay module. In that case use a 12V battery or
adapter.

Warning: High caution is required while handling 220V AC voltage. Make sure the connection is
according to circuit and for beginners it is recommended to use junction box (Spike box) that has
fuse in it. Also your wires should be of higher gauge so that it can carry the required current and
do not connect loads that consume more than 8A current.

Working of RF controlled Home Appliances:

The circuit of the project is very simple and can be easily connected in a breadboard, this circuit
is built without any microcontroller. we have used two breadboards, one for the transmitter part
and the other for the receiver part. we have also used two AC lamps to demonstrate the project.
Once we are done with the connections the set-up should look like something like below.

Here the breadboard that is powered by the 9V battery is the transmitter circuit and the other
powered by 12V adapter (not shown in pic) is the Receiver module. The AC supply is taken from
the black junction box shown above. We also have two relays to control the two AC loads
independently. The yellow wire makes up the phase connection and the green wire is the neutral
connection.

Once we power on both the circuits we can start toggling the AC loads by using the two switches
present on the Transmitter circuit. When the switch one is closed it connects the pin D13 of
encoder IC to ground and this value is sent to the decoder IC via the RF medium.

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After the decoder receives the value of D13 is also makes its D11 pin to be zero. This means no
voltage is given to the input pin of the relay module and the Phase wire will be connected via the
Common (Com) and the normally closed (NC) terminals. The same happens in vise versa to turn
off the load.

we can now play around this set-up by toggling our switches and our AC loads should also be
toggled accordingly. The range of these modules could extend (tested up to 3 meters) by using
antenna on the transmitter module.

5. COST BREAKDOWN

ITEM QUANTITY PRICE(Birr)

433 MHz RF Transmitter and Receiver 1 2000
HT12D Decoder IC 1 300

HT12E Encoder IC 1 300

5V Relay Module (2Nos) 2 200

Push on Push Off Switch (2 Nos) 4 60

1M ohm, 47K ohm Resistor 6 30

7805 Voltage Regulator 2 60

9V Battery (2Nos) 2 75

Pcb Board (2Nos) 2 300

Connecting wire 20 20

TOTAL 3405

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6.PROJECT TIMEPLAN

ACTIVITY DURATION IN MONTHS

Mar. Apr. May. Jun. July.

Proposal(Drafting)

Functional Plan

Hardware & Design

Design Testing

Implementation

Documentation

Table 1 Gantt chart

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7.REFERENCES

A.P. Godse, A.O.mulani (2009). Embedded Systems (First Edition). pp. (1-5).
B. Somanthan Nair (2006). Electronic Devices and Applications (3rd Printing). pp. (343).
J.S.Chitode (2009). Power Electronics (4th Edition). pp. (40-41).
Stephen Lindsay (2013). Smart Home Automation with Linux and Raspberry Pi. pp. (156-
160).
Tooraj jamasb, William J. Nuttall, Michael G. pllott (2006). Future Electricity Technologies
and Systems. pp. (333-334).
Virender kumar (2002). Digital Electronics: Theory and Experiments. pp. (177-179)
Y.N. Bapat (1992). Electronic Circuits and Systems: Analog and Digital (1st edition). pp.
(320-322).
All About Circuits (2003-2016: N.G.) [Online]Retrieved on 27th April 2016
Gregor Kleine(N.G.) Elektor Electronics [Online]Retrieved on 27th April 2016 from
Nairaland (2005-2016) [online]. Retrieved on 27th April 2016 from

Ivee Smart homes (Online)Retrieved on 27th April 2016 from

SafeWise (Online) Retrieved on 27th April 2016 from http://www.safewise.com.
Microcontrollers(Online) Retrieved on 27th April 2016 from
Embedded systems (Online) Retrieved on 27th April 2016 from
Hui Pan (December, 2009). Home Networks Monthly Newsletter. pp. (12-13).

Stephen Lindsay (2013). Smart Home Automation with Linux and Raspberry Pi. pp. (156-
160).

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