Advanced integrated communication platform for intelligent daylight-responsive lighting control

Abstract

This dissertation looks into the design and implementation of a low cost wireless lighting control system that achieve energy savings through the control of the light intensity of the lamp in the room by making use of the low cost Arduino platform devices. The Arduino Uno board was the main hardware used in this dissertation with the functionalities of the Arduino Uno boards being expanded through the use of the DMX shield and the Wireless Proto Shield. The DMX shield serves the purpose of communicating with the DMX devices such as the controller unit and the lamp, and the Wireless Proto Shield was used to interface the wireless RF module from XBee together with the Arduino Uno. Detailed steps on how the configuration and interfacing with each other was carried out are described in the dissertation. The XBee RF modules are the most essential component for the implementation of wireless transmission as they served as the transceiver which processes and transmits the data wirelessly from the transmitter base station to the receiving base station and vice versa. The final implementable design consisted of a transmitted base station and a receiving base station with each base station consisting of 2 Arduino UNO boards communicating with each other through the I2C protocol. A graphic user interface was also designed to control the intensity of the light providing for future expansion when there is a need to have both a centralized physical controller and a Graphic User Interface (GUI) to suit the needs and preferences of the user. Due to size and weight constraints faced, the need to explore alternatives to overcome these constraints was studied and solutions explored to address them. The solution was to come up with a customized design for the receiving base station. The schematics of the customized design was prepared before proceeding on to build a prototype to verify the proof concept before proceeding on to fabricate the final design of the receiving base station. Various details such as the steps to design, programming and bill of materials are also provided for in the dissertation.