DEVELOPMENT OF ARDUINO-BASED COUNTER SYSTEM

ABSTRACT

 

Arduino.cc created the Arduino Nano, an 8-bit open-source microcontroller board. The board has a number of digital and analog input/output pins that can be used to connect to other circuits. A visitor counter is a device that measures visitor traffic entering and exiting institutions, recreational centers, malls, etc with the incorporation of an energy-saving lighting system in a bid to maximize energy consumption whilst providing crowd control and crowd traffic information. This thesis is based on the design of an Arduino Nano bi-directional visitor counter using Baze University as a case study. With the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to enforce social distancing guild lines the importance of the digital counter increases daily. The primary idea behind this project is to calculate and show the number of people entering any environment, such as a lecture hall, a conference room. The LCD monitor located outside the room shows the number of individuals in the room. This counter is said to be bi-directional since if a person enters the room, the counter will be increased and decreased if a person exits the room. The counter is fitted with two ultrasonic sensors each at the exit and entrance of the enclosed room that generates a 40 kHz sound wave which when obstructed reads as an individual entering or leaving the environment. In various enclosed settings, such as seminar halls, where space capacity is limited and should not be exceeded, implementations of these systems are important. The device will show the exact number of people inside the room and potential system upgrades include adding a voice warning system to signify when the room limit is exceeded and people can no longer enter inside compared to the buzzer already included. The counter is fitted with a relay system which powers the lighting system. The counters system project achieved crowd control to enable social distancing whilst implementing small-scale energy conservation.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 Introduction

 

The world is fast becoming a digital hub as manual and time-consuming tasks are readily being digitalized.  Looking back in the 90s, individuals made use of crude meanings to count visitors by manually counting them or they used a manual tally counter. But with continual developments and rising needs and challenges such as the covid-19 pandemic which required social distancing and crowd control, load control for buildings, room temperature control, sense trespassers, and several others. The demand for electronic devices that can control crowds and room facilities has risen to the point where they could be used in a variety of real-time applications such as hotels and living rooms. As a result, an automated counter system has emerged as a cost-effective way to count the number of people entering or exiting a room. It uses simple sensors such as IR sensors or ultrasonic sensors to intelligently find and count the number of people and is coded using an Arduino development board.

The Ultrasonic Sensors will detect people entering the room through the door, and the signal will be sent to the Arduino Nano for processing and regulating the count in the room, as well as specifically monitoring the lighting system in the room. [1]. It also provides crowd monitoring information and accuracy. The Ultrasonic Sensors will detect people entering the room through the door, and the signal will be sent to the Arduino Nano for processing and regulating the count in the room, as well as specifically monitoring the lighting system in the room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.1 Background of Study

 

Measurement, counting to be exact plays an important role in nature and human existence. It is a broad discipline in both engineering and science encompassing the areas of detection, acquisition, control, and analysis of different data. Measurement provides means of describing natural, human, and artificial activities in quantitative terms. It comprises the precise and accurate measurement and recording of physical and non-physical parameters that play a vital role in every branch of scientific research and industrial processes.

Recent advancement in science and technology, has led to the development of several sophisticated and high precision measurement and counting devices. Among the devices developed, are those for counting the number of people present in a particular place (up/down counters). These devices are essential because of the role it plays virtually in   all aspects of life [2] .Visitor counting is simply a measurement of the number of visitors entering and exiting conference rooms, malls, sports venues, etc. With the rise in the standard of living, there is a growing sense of urgency to create circuits that will make life easier.

An ancient memory aid system used to record and register numbers, amounts, or even texts, was a tally (or tally stick). Pliny the Elder makes historical reference to the best wood to be used for tallies, and Marco Polo discusses the use of tallying in China. Tallies have been used to the point of being reliable for various purposes, such as messaging and scheduling, and particularly in person counting, financial and legal transactions. The mechanical tally counter was the replacement for the tally stick, it’s a mechanism used in counting anything incrementally. Counting people, animals, or objects that are quickly entering and leaving a location is one of the most common uses for tally counters [2] .

In the last two decades visit estimations and counting were done using; trial logs, examination of footprints, various permits and best estimates made by staffs working in institutions [3]. As time went on, an electronic counting counter with an LCD screen to display the count and a push-button to advance the count was added. In the mid-1990s, some still had a button to reduce the count in case of a miscalculations. Different types of people counters have now been introduced as a result of technological advancements to automatically count the number of people entering and leaving a building at a specific time. Laser beams, thermal imaging, video cameras, and infrared sensors are just a few of them. All of these sensors serve as visitor detectors in their own right.

These devices are very reliable and accurate in terms of performance as compared to the mechanical tally counter used previously [2].  The counter gives statistics on the number of actual visits to a region that have been made. It is possible to estimate the number of visitors and monitor this information, combined with data obtained from visitor surveys [3].

Electricity has become a necessity for everyone; without it, daily life tasks and activities come to a halt. Energy conservation has become mandatory because of the depletion of nonrenewable resources, and we can also reduce electricity bills by doing so. We all know that renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydro are used to generate, conserve, and renew energy, which is advantageous because it is pollution-free, long-lasting, and has no negative environmental consequences. Energy resources such as petroleum, coal, natural gas, uranium, and propane, on the other hand, are referred to as non -renewable resources because their finite supplies. Many environmental impacts and the daily depletion of energy reserves are signals for us to conserve energy, necessitating the development of an automatic energy conservation system [4].

In recent times, there is an increasingly popular need for automatic appliances. With the increase in the standard of living, there is a sense of urgency to create circuits that will make life easier. In order to avoid congestion, the counters also contain information about the number of people in a room.

 

1.1.1 Importance of Crowd Counters

To provide a workable approach for counting people in offices or a place where the intensity of people is moderate to high, to ensure social distancing and energy conservation. These counters also provide importance crowd traffic data useful in marketing and coordination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.2 Research Problem

The development of an Arduino-based Crowd Counter System for Baze University Abuja. Although a lot of work has been done in the literature and the implementation of various software and projects concerning Arduino. In Nigeria today, there is currently no system set up to track population and energy consumption at the household, corporate, and municipal levels.

In previous years, numerous well-known institutions (libraries, community-centres, auditorium, etc.) around the world have experienced various problems related to traffic monitoring. To vindicate accurate results for organizational advertising and quantitative analysis, it was important to track tourists to perform the human traffic management role and tourist flow estimate. This ultimately reflects the rate at which consumers use services and goods. Therefore, we deem it appropriate to identify these problems encountered by our various organizations by studying clear case studies such as the COVID 19 pandemic and 2014 stampede at the national stadium Abuja which have both claimed the lives of many, and finding solutions to them by designing a digital bidirectional visitor counter (DBVC) [2].

Hiring human auditors to stand and manually tally the number of visitors who enter or pass by a particular area is the most common method for counting visitors. Human auditing software, also known as human-based data collection, was unreliable and expensive. For example, in situations where a lot of people enter and exit buildings, such as meeting rooms, federal buildings, libraries, plaza, and stadiums, human auditors manually counting the number of visitors may gather incorrect information. Many organisations have sought to find ways to minimize the inaccurate problems of traffic monitoring for this purpose. This digital bidirectional visitor is something we want to design and build. This circuit will provide executives with information on the density and movement of people in a building [4].

For this research, the general thrusts are to address the following important issues

• To replace the old practice of counting the number of people entering and exiting the room one by one, ARM-VC can be used to keep track of the number of people present.
• Crowd control to enable social distancing
• Implementation of small-scale energy conservation.

 

 

 

 

1.3 Motivation of Research

2019-2020 has been a torrid time with the coronavirus pandemic affecting the whole world. Two of the major emphasis was on social distancing and crowd control. The need to return things to normal has put governments under pressure to relax lockdown protocols. This project aims to aid institutions, offices and large establishments in crowds’ control and energy consumption. Reduction in energy consumption could be achieved through automatic switching off of electrical appliances such as air coolers and fans after the end of programs, and meetings, once the device senses he absence of people.

All these problems gave me the perspective that concise analysis on the number of people entering and leaving halls can be conducted. This encouraged the concept of a Bidirectional Visitor Counter from which we can monitor the number of individuals entering or leaving and enable all individuals to exit every building before sealing it. Visitor counts could be carried out to evaluate individuals’ feedback on any case. And most notably, all electrical equipment would be switched off automatically in the event of all people leaving the premises, resulting in energy conservation.

 

1.4 Aim

This research project is aimed at designing and constructing Arduino Based Visitors Counter with Automatic Room Light Control. Making use of Ultrasonic Sensors and Arduino Nano as core components.

 

1.5 Objectives

• Provision of a concise literature review on Arduino Bidirectional Counters Systems.
• The use of Arduino Software IDE to program the Arduino Nano with the help of a USB connection. To analyze Consumer traffic whilst designing a user-friendly and safe counter system.

DEVELOPMENT OF ARDUINO-BASED COUNTER SYSTEM

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