Project SKEE1013

SKEE 1012 Introduction To Electrical Engineering : Project Report

Project Title : Morning Rise

Lecturer : DR. ZOLKAFLE BIN BUNTAT

Group Members :

1. George Sim Jeor Yii
2. Chew Choon Seng
3. Chuah Shi Yi
4. Ong Suey Li
5. Ng Ker Ying
6. Tan Wei Fang

1.0 Abstract

Nowadays, many people have difficulty waking up in the morning. Studies have concluded that sunlight can affect our biological clocks, thus a device called Morning rise is used to aid them in the waking process according to the natural rhythm of sunlight. This device is mainly controlled by light dependent resistor (LDR). When the LDR detects sunlight, it will activate the light source in the darkened bedroom to wake the person up. Thus, people can wake up naturally  once the Sun rises and they will not be late to work. Morning rise is a powerful device for those people who have sleep inertia.

Table of Content

2.0 Introduction

Is it a struggle to wake up every morning? Is the blaring alarm not working? Nowadays, many people have trouble crawling out of bed, which is probably due to an inner clock set to the wrong 'wake-up and sleep' times or the alarm clocks are not functioning. In fact, there are a number of zeitgebers, social or environmental cues that will affect our biological clock. According to a review article entitled “Human circadian rhythms: physiological and therapeutic relevance of light and melatonin”, examples of human circadian rhythms are body temperature cycles, secretion cycle of melatonin, thyroid-stimulating hormone cycle and so on. An important one is cycle of melatonin secretion which will regulate the sleep-wake cycle and the secretion of melatonin is affected by sunlight. After extensive research into human circadian rhythms and how they are affected by the sunlight, it can be concluded that our body are conditioned to wake up when exposed to sunlight. 

We may be able to hack our brain to wake up at the right time by changing the stimuli around us. We can create artificial sunlight in our darkened bedroom, so that the light receptors in our eyes will gauge the light around us and send signals to our brain. This will reduce the production of melatonin. Melatonin level in the blood will be reduced, hence increasing alertness. Our brain will accept the signal that it is time to wake up, so we will not have difficulties to wake up in the morning. By detecting sunlight outside the room and then creating a “sunrise” in our darkened room, we can “trick” our body into a balanced circadian rhythm. Based on this theory, an electronic device is created and developed to overcome this problem, that is Morning rise.

Morning rise is a very useful device for those who suffer from sleep inertia or lack of energy and motivation to wake up as well as for those who have existing health condition where loud alarm clocks are inappropriate to them. With the morning rise, people can wake up according to the natural rhythm of sunlight. In this device, it consists of light dependent receptor (LDR) and one light source such as light emitting diode (LED), bulbs or table lamps (optionally with a buzzer). When LDR detects the sunrise, it will activate the light source in the bedroom. It creates a daytime environment in the room, thus when people’s body expose to the light, they can wake up easily and improve their waking hours. Waking up with the sun gives us the opportunity to start our day just as the day is getting started.

3.0 Problem Statement

     Nowadays, people often burn the midnight oil to complete their work and this will cause them to wake up late in the morning. Therefore, setting up an alarm is very important for workers, students or anyone who needs to wake up early in the morning for meetings, classes or anything. Most of us use  phone apps to set alarm. However, sometimes it is useless for those people who are really tired for the day to wake up early in the morning because they will turn off the alarm and lay down back to sleep or they just cannot hear the ringing alarm once they have entered  deep sleep. This problem can happen to anyone who has difficulties to wake up early in the morning. Thus, this device can help people to wake up early in the morning once the sun rises and the device detects sunlight so that they will not postpone their work because of wake up late.  Besides, the design of the device can also help people in melatonin production due to light exposure as melatonin plays important role in the regulation of sleep cycles which is circadian rhythm. Its production is influenced by the detection of light by the retina of the eye. However, nowadays people are getting too much light at night and not bright enough light during the day. Thus studies suggest that with a good dose of daily sun exposure, we could produce optimal levels of melatonin.

4.0 Objectives and Scope

This device aims to let people wake up early in the morning once the sun rises to complete their important daily tasks especially for the workers and students who has difficulties to wake up in the morning. This device makes use of sunlight from the sun because human is sensitive to the light. When the device detects sunlight in the morning, it will operate by turning on the light in the room (or releasing sound from the buzzer if buzzer is used). The light in the room can wake up the people and let them know that it’s time to wake up for the day. The improvement can suit user with weak hearing abilities or when the user has so much difficulties to wake up early in the morning.

5.0 Theory & Mechanism

This section will illustrate the main theoretical applications of the Morning Rise device. This section will focus on the input (data from LDR) and the output mechanism (Relay).

LDR input:

Figure 1

The main concept of LDR (Light Dependant Resistor) input is voltage division. The voltage division setup is as shown in Figure 1. The LDR also has an inverse relationship property between light intensity and resistance. The brighter the light detected, the lower the LDR resistance and vice versa.

When the LDR is connected to an analog input pin on the Arduino Uno, the analog values (0-5V) across the LDR is converted to digital values (0-1023) using its built-in ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) [1]. These digital values will then be fed into the analog input pin for reading.

Since the analog input values are in digital representations. The coding for Arduino Uno are written from 0 -1023 range.

(Example:  if  ldrStatus <= 600)

The following will explain the mechanism in an unconventional way that goes on in both low and high intensity light scenarios with node voltages, to ease the understanding of how lower and higher digital values are fed into the analog input pin. V_a will represent the node voltage at the analog input pin.

Scenario 1: Low intensity of light

Figure 2

When low light is detected, the resistance across LDR is high, which results in high potential difference between the node voltage +5V and V_a. This causes a low value of V_a, which will lead to the Arduino Uno analog pin to register a low digital value (Example:  ldrStatus = 200)

Scenario 2: High intensity of light detected

Figure 3

When high intensity of light is detected, the resistance across LDR is low, which results in low potential difference between the node voltages +5V and Va. This causes a high value of Va, which leads to the Arduino Uno analog pin to register a high digital value.

(Example: ldrStatus = 1100)

Hence, from the different digital values, the arduino is programmed to give certain types of output.

Relay Mechanism:

Figure 4 [2]

The relay used in this project is similar to the one in Figure 4. The abbreviations used for further discussion will represent the following:

N.C.   = Normally Open

COM  = Common

N.O.   = Normally Closed

VCC   = Voltage at the common collector

GND   = Ground

IN     = Active Low Input

Figure 5

The above Figure 5 shows the connection between the relay and the secondary circuit.

The secondary circuit in this case contains an AC power supply, extension wire and table lamp. The extension wire is cut and has its live wire exposed to be connected to the relay at COM and NO pin. This signifies that the secondary circuit is normally open. The secondary circuit is only completed when the relay activates.

Hence, to complete the secondary circuit, a low signal is sent into the relay to activate it. (Note: The relay configuration for the input is active low).

Arduino Programming Code:

The following shows the code used to operate the full circuit.

6.0 Methodology

Method and technique

  In this project, we used some of the following method to complete the proposed task:

1. A little research were carried by using Google about the application and theory of the Arduino UNO and relay.

      2. Arduino UNO is used as our microcontroller to minimize our time and simplify our circuit instead of building our own               microcontroller.

      3.  Relay is used as our switch for switching on the secondary high power circuit which is powerful  enough to light up the             table lamp.

      4. The Arduino software is used to allow us to write codes and upload them into our board.

      5.Basic electric law and theory is used to make sure that the project in progress safety and  successfully.        

                        - V=IR

                        -P=VI

                        -In series connection, the permit amount of current that pass through each socket of the extension                                                 wire is the same which is 10A.

Precaution

  A certain precaution need to be taken to in order for the safely and preventing the spoiled of the component.

1. Make sure the electrical appliances which connect to the socket of the extension wire is not exceed 10A and 2500W.
2. The connection of the cutting wires was wrapped by electrical tape completely to prevent electric leakage.
3. Make sure all the components is connected based on the right polarity.
4. Never try to touch the relay or the connection of cutting wires when the switch is turn on.

Apparatus and Components

The schematic diagram above shows the connection between the Arduino UNO, relay, LDR,                        

buzzer and the table lamp.

Procedure

Firstly, we cut off the extension wire and shorten the earth and neutral wires.

After that, we connect the earth and neutral wire together by using electrical tape while the live wires are connected to the relay.

Then, we connect the LDR resistor and the 10kΩ resistor on the breadboard.

We connect the Arduino UNO with the buzzer and the LDR resistor as the schematic diagram above.

After that, we connect the Arduino UNO with the relay and we code the Arduino by using the “The Arduino software”.

Finally, we connect the table lamp to the socket of the extension wire and 9V battery to the Arduino UNO. It shows that our project is working successfully.

7.0 Results and Discussion

Results

      From the Introduction to Electrical Engineering project, our group successfully made the Morning Rise- Table lamp which automatically lights up and buzzer which automatically rings when light is detected. This is because when the high intensity of light is detected, the resistance across light dependent resistor(LDR) is low which activates the electronic circuit to light up the table lamp and ring the buzzer. From the picture below, we can see that the table lamp is off when low intensity of light is detected by the LDR which is same situation when the surrounding is dark at night. While the table lamp will light up and the buzzer will ring when high light intensity is directed by the LDR, which is the same situation when high intensity of sunlight is directed to LDR. So, the device can make the users wake up easily in daytime by directing the light source to the user and the noise made by buzzer. This can avoid the user from oversleeping and miss some important events.

Diagram 1 : The design of Morning Rise

Discussion

Our group has designed a few circuits before getting the final design of our project-Morning Rise.

Diagram 2 : Example of wrong circuit

Diagram 3 : Final design of the circuit

There are a few limitations present for the electronic components and also electronic circuit throughout the project. Initially, our group uses Light Emitting Diode (LED) light as the components to light up to wake the user up when high intensity of light is detected. The limitation is that the light emitted by LED light is too dim and hardly make the users who are sleeping soundly to wake up. To overcome this problem, we use table lamp with high intensity of light to replace LED light. The light intensity provided by table lamp is more than enough to make the user to wake up. In real world situation, some of the other indoor lights can be used to replace table lamp also.

     Furthermore, there is a limitation when table lamp is used to replace LED light. Table lamp requires higher power supply to light up compared to LED light. The output voltage provided by the Arduino Uno when low resistance across LDR is unable to light up the table lamp. Hence, a relay switch, which can detect signal in primary circuit and activate the secondary circuit is used in the circuit. When high light intensity is detected by LDR, the resistance across LDR is low, the potential difference across LDR is low, relay switch detects the low signal from the primary circuit and activate the secondary circuit with high output voltage (≈240V) which able to light up the table lamp.

     In addition, there are many types of table lamp in market of Malaysia. Different types of voltage supplied are required when different table lamp is used. Hence, the output voltage supplied should not be a fixed value. Relay switch which is used in this circuit ensure any lamp that requires voltage supply within 240 V can function well. This enable the electronic device to be more convenient as different kind of lamps can be used  according to the users’ preferences.

8.0 Conclusion

     In conclusion, our project which is “Morning Rise” is successfully made and the main purpose for doing the device is to wake up the person who is struggling to wake up in the morning. When the sunlight irradiated the LDR, the extension wires will work normally and cause the table lamp and the buzzer activate. The light and the sound will wake us up so that we can wake up in time. Actually, not only the table lamp and the buzzer can be activate but the other device such as bed vibrator or water sprinkler can also be activated by connecting it to the extension wires.

9.0 Acknowledgement

     First of all, we would like to thank Faculty of Electrical Engineering(FKE) of University Teknologi Malaysia(UTM) for the facilities available. Besides, we also would like to thank our lecturer, Dr. Zolkafle Bin Buntat for providing us this opportunity to do this project and guide us so that we are able to complete the project well. He gave us many ideas when we are not sure about where to start the project. We are extremely thankful to Dr. Zolkafle Bin Buntat for the kindness and supportive advices throughout the project work. His advices help us to improve our project and smoothen the process for us to conduct this task. Finally, we would like to thank all of our group members for giving commitment to complete this project.

• References

1. John Douillard, (2017, August 29). How Sun Exposure Affects Sleep and Melatonin Production. Retrieved from https://lifespa.com/how-sun-exposure-affects-sleep-and-melatonin-production/
2. Debra J Skene and Josephine Arendt, (2006, June 22). Human circadian rhythms: physiological and therapeutic relevance of light and melatonin. Retrieved from file:///F:/Downloads/000456306778520142.pdf
3. Arduino – Playing with a light sensitive resistor (LDR). (2015, November 04). Retrieved from https://www.tweaking4all.com/hardware/arduino/arduino-light-sensitive-resistor/
4. 1 Channel Relay Module (Active Low Control). (2018, May 09). Retrieved from https://www.addicore.com/Single-Channel-Relay-Module-p/ad317.htm