smart house enviromental illumination dimming and control

JOURNAL OF DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 11, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2015 997

Smart Household Environment IlluminationDimming and Control

Yu-En Wu and Kuo-Chan Huang

Abstract—This paper presents the design of a smart householdenvironment illumination dimming-control. The control can be op-erated using either an Android App or a computer using eitherWi-Fi or Zigbee to connect to a Database Management System(DBMS). The DBMS can synchronize with a central controller inorder to achieve simple and convenient dimming-control of theuser's home illumination. In this paper, a linear dimming schemewas adopted to reduce the light gleaming. In order to achieve suit-able variations in the illumination environment, a highly-efficientthree-color LED was used as the light source. This paper coversthe designs of six environment illumination controls for users whocan deliver the control states to the central controller and mobilephone. A 24 V DC power supply was designed in this system andcan collocate with the DC/DC converter to form a power modulesuitable for general home use. The interface of the proposed en-vironment illumination control is clear and simple; one can verifythat the design presented in this paper possesses very high practi-cability from the experimental results.

Index Terms—Database management system, DC/DC converter,illumination design, Wi-Fi, Zigbee.

I. INTRODUCTION

T HE current digital era and access to home internet has im-proved our modern lives. There is no place like home.

The seven indexes that are typically used to classify an E-Homeare: information and communication, safety and disaster-pre-vention, health and comfort, energy-saving, layout, system in-tegration, and facility management. This study focuses on in-formation and communication, and system integration. Illumi-nation is a very basic necessity for a household [13]. In addi-tion to the function of being able to see, illumination can makea home more modern and comfortable. Individuals live undersignificant stress and therefore light and colors can help peoplerelax at home.Bluetooth [1], [2] and Zigbee [3] are most commonly used

in wireless remote lighting controls. Due to the fact that Zigbeeoffers improved energy-savings, is user-friendly, and cheaper,it will be used in this case study. In addition, wireless signalsare impacted due to different room decorations. Zigbee is ableto efficiently overcome this problem since it composes a web ofmulti-groups where every node can be used as a relay point todeliver signals. Furthermore, Zigbee is easy to operate and its

Manuscript received December 11, 2014; revised May 25, 2015; acceptedJuly 02, 2015. Date of publication July 17, 2015; date of current versionNovember 06, 2015.The authors are with the Department of Electronic Engineering, National

Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung 824, Taiwan(e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]).Color versions of one or more of the figures are available online at http://

ieeexplore.ieee.org.Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JDT.2015.2455152

power supply is relatively simple. The low power consumptionof Zigbee is of significant advantage.Due to environmental protection, energy-saving has become

a very important subject. Traditionally, different colors of flu-orescent tubes were used for lighting control. However, thisapproach is inefficient and consumes more energy. Therefore,LED lights are now more commonly used [12]. However, theselights are often very big and expensive since they are comprisedof a number of low-power LEDs. In the case study, a singlehigh-power RGB LED was used with a high-power driving cir-cuit in order to reduce the size of the light. This simplifies itsinstallation. This system is convenient since it simply requiresa power supply without additional complicated circuits.In respect to the lighting control, pulse width modulation

(PWM) [4], [10] light adjustment is commonly used since itis simple to control and the difference in color temperatures isminimal. However, PWMcauses vision tiredness and headachesdue to the flickering light source. Therefore, a constant currentcontrol [5] was adopted in the case study to avoid this problem.Intelligent lighting products currently on the market is

divided into monochrome lighting and colored lighting,monochromatic lighting can only control the color temperature,such as PANASONIC Smart-joint control [14].All of colorlighting products are belonging to Wi-Fi connection type, suchas Milight RGBW [15]. Wi-Fi connection must be operated in awireless network environment, this drawback can be improvedby Zigbee, ZigBee can be amplified the connectivity rangeemploying mesh network, and low power consumption is itsgreatest advantage.In this paper, a Microcontroller (MCU) for producing groups

of PWM was used. Groups of PWM were continuously trans-ferred to DC via filtration. Furthermore, the light level wascontrolled via linear adjustment. The control can be operatedusing either an Android App or a computer using Zigbee toconnect to a Database Management System (DBMS).Althoughthis method is unable to achieve superior color temperaturesin comparison to PWM adjustment, it is better for people. Forour purposes, accurate color temperature is not necessary forhousehold light. Therefore, this study mainly focused on usinga simple method that can remove the light sparkling effect.Table I shows the feature comparison between the proposed

scheme and commercial products.

II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATIONThe necessary factors to achieve household illumination are:a) user-friendly operation;b) small volume and easy installation;c) efficiency within the same range as general lighting.

1551-319X © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

998 JOURNAL OF DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 11, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2015

TABLE IFEATURE COMPARISON BETWEEN THE PROPOSED SCHEME AND COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS

DC voltage was adopted for the power supply. This is a moremodern power supply which allows us to save on the cost ofvoltage stabilization of power factor correction (PFC) and DC.Therefore, losses in energy switching can be reduced. Voltagesin the range of 12–60 V can be used, covering almost all the DCvoltage standards. This means that there is no need to install DCswitchers. A 10 W high-efficiency tri-color LED was used forthe light source, which is both small and efficient. In regards tothe heat, fans were used to reduce heat from the LED. There-fore, heat exhaustion will not occur and the circuit lifespan isextended. A Zigbee wireless module was adopted for signal de-livery. In this way, wiring and fixed point controls will not exist.Users will not be interrupted by others' signals with the help ofpasswords, which allows the user to control the light conditionsvia the internet. Cell phones can be used by different users tocontrol the same household lights. Visual Studio 2012’s maincontrol program was used for the system. Users are able to de-termine the light conditions via a PC interface. There is suffi-cient mistake detection and handshake in the MCU, such thatmistakes can be eliminated even when signals are not normal.The settings at the PC end are saved locally for future offlinecontrol.Fig. 1 shows a flow diagram of the system control. The data

is saved in the database when users set the lights using their cellphones. The light control mainframe regularly retrieves datafrom the database to control the lights. In Fig. 2, the systemstructure is shown. A mainframe and a number of cellphonescan be used for control. Their operations are based on the data-base. The mainframe retrieves a user's settings and initializeseach light. The design of the software is user-friendly. In Fig. 3,a system operation flow chart is shown, illustrating the cellphones' APP, database, the mainframes, MCU, and the flow ofthe circuit.

Fig. 1. An illustration of the system control map.

Fig. 2. System configuration.

WU AND HUANG: SMART HOUSEHOLD ENVIRONMENT ILLUMINATION DIMMING AND CONTROL 999

Fig. 3. System operationflow chart.

Fig. 4. System hardware structure.

III. MCU AND PERIPHERAL CIRCUITSIn Fig. 4, the system hardware structure is shown. A Renesas

RL78/G12 R5F10267 [6] was used for the MCU, which is a16-bit micro-controller with a complex instruction set computer(CISC). The circuits were driven with a SP2260 [7] LEDDriver,LM2576HV-3.3 [8] voltage switches IC, and a Zigbee module[9].

IV. SOFTWARE DESIGN

Visual Studio 2012 was adopted in the main control programas the user's interface. It is connected with a MySQL databaseand communicates with the micro-controller via Zigbee.

Fig. 5. System software flow chart.

Fig. 5 shows the system software flow chart. The softwarefirst initializes the system and RS232 interface to prepare forZigbee communication. The system will then transmit data toupdate commands and regularly retrieve data from the databasevia the Zigbee module when a user presses a function key,thus updating the corresponding display. If a user choosesa manual control, the system will directly transmit the data.The three co-programs are: Form_load(), Time_tick(), andtxt_out_event(). Their functions are:1) Form_load(): sets the initial conditions of the variables, the

timer's functioning cycles, and clear the database's rd_flagto 0. The rd_flag is used to show whether the database isretrieved after being updated.

2) Time_tick() is a subroutine of cyclical operation. It willupdate the database and regularly retrieve set values totransfer to the control circuit when the settings are changed.

3) Txt_out_event(): The subroutine is used to transfer thelight signals, light conditions, and the correspondingvalues of RGB with an check code to RS232 by Zigbee.

V. OPERATION OF THE HARDWARE AND DATABASE

In Fig. 6, an operative single light control circuit isshown which contains a Zigbee module, MCU, SP2260, and


TABLE IISTATEMENT OF THE SYSTEM DATABASE

Fig. 6. Photograph of the system control circuit.

Fig. 7. System database setting figure.

LM2576HV. In Fig. 7, the settings of the database are shown,while Table II shows the detailed statements of the database.

VI. OPERATION OF THE ANDROID PHONE

In Fig. 8, the initial operating window of an Android phone isshown. The three touch squares simply correspond to the livingroom, bedroom 1, and bedroom 2. The steps of the live test were

Fig. 8. Mobile app's initial operating window.

based on the living room. The system continuously allowed thealternative light modes shown in Fig. 9.After entering the mode selection screen, we are able to

choose six different modes. They are General, Read, Movie,Sex, Relax, and Sleep. “Return to Index” is also shown on thescreen for users to return to the previous page. If the Generalmode is chosen, the light mode selection will appear.There will be two buttons corresponding to the left and right

lights of the room as shown in Fig. 10. A user can drag the barto adjust the light level of the mode. “Return to Index” allowsthem to go back to the top function page. If “left light” is chosen,the light function settings will appear.There are now two modes of operation as shown in Fig. 11:

General and Customizable. The general mode helps adjust thelight level of a single light, while the customizable mode cancontrol the RGB tri-color adjustment. If the customizable mode


Fig. 9. Environment selection screen.

Fig. 10. Environment lighting selection screen.

Fig. 11. Light function setup.

Fig. 12. Light color settings.

Fig. 13. Corresponding state of a single light in the database.

Fig. 14. Operating screen of a PC retrieving data from the database.

is chosen, the light color settings will appear for users to adjustthe colors.There are three bars to control the RGB color. The initial

values of the three colors are all 0 and the corresponding state ofthe single light in the database is shown in Fig. 13. The computercan retrieve the same values due to synchronization with thedatabase.In Fig. 14, the operating screen of a PC retrieving data from

the database is shown. The PC transfers the series 4600010 tothe light control circuit via Zigbee. If the light level of RGBis set as 5, 0, 0 in Fig. 12, the contents of database are then asshown in Fig. 15.


Fig. 15. Corresponding state of a single light control in the database.

Fig. 16. A PC retrieving single light control data from the database.

Fig. 17. Display color of a single red LED light.

In Fig. 16, the screen of a PC retrieving the single lightcontrol data from the database is shown. The series transmittedthrough Zigbee to the control panel is 4650015. The color ofthe bulb changes from gray to green. This means that the cor-responding light is turned on. The textbox shows the returnedvalue. Fig. 17 shows the values from Zigbee and the colorstate resulting from the adjustment of the MCU output controlSP2260. Since we set the red output as 5, green and blue willbe 0, and the resulting output light is red.

Fig. 18. Environment shown 1.

Fig. 19. Household illumination has shown 2.

VII. RESULTS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL SIMULATION

In Fig. 18, the orange frame shows a light level of 3 in thegeneral mode. The light level was 5 in the blue frame, and was4 in the green frame.In Fig. 19, the orange frame was operated under Sex mode

and the light level was 5. The blue frame was operated underSleep mode and its light level was 7 while the green frame wasin Relax mode and its light level was 5.The system was operated under Sex mode as shown in the

blue frame in Fig. 20; the parameters of the RGB settings of thesingle left light were 9, 5, and 5, respectively.


Fig. 20. Single light control in Sex mode.

Fig. 21. Single light control in Sleep mode.

Fig. 22. Single light brightness control in Relax mode.

In Fig. 21, the system was operated in Sleep mode. The pa-rameters of the single RGB light were set as 9, 9, and 9, respec-tively. The light color is shown in the orange frame.Fig. 22 shows the system operating in Relax mode where the

light level was adjusted to 1 as shown in the green frame.

VIII. CONCLUSION

A smart household illumination system was designed in thisstudy, and includes the main control system, an Android App,the establishment of a MySQL database, a controllable currentLED driven circuit, and Zigbee wireless delivery. Users areable to control home lighting by operating computers and cellphones via wireless Zigbee. The purpose of the design in thestudy is for commercial use. Problems such as installation, op-eration, and remote control were carefully considered. In addi-tion, the module design furthers the system's practicability suchthat general families would be more willing to install the systemat home.After completely validate the feasibility of this study, this

paper will plan to improve the system further toward low-costand low-power consumption, it will use Raspberry Pi to replaceexpensive, power consumption and short life of PC, using Linuxas the operating system, and to replace the huge MySQL data-base with SQLLite, making the study more commercializationapplied to each family.

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Yu-En Wu was born in Chia-Yi, Taiwan, in 1964.He received the B. S. degree in electronics engi-neering from Taiwan Institute of Technology, Taipei,Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1989, and the M. S. degree inelectrical engineering from Sun Yat-Sen Univer-sity, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and the Ph.D. degree inelectrical engineering from National Chung ChengUniversity, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, in 1989, 1992 and2005, respectively.From 1992 to 2007, he was a Lecturer in the De-

partment of Electronic Engineering, Wu Feng Insti-tute of Technology, Chia-Yi, Taiwan. Since 2007, he has been with the Elec-tronic Engineering, National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Tech-nology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. His research interests include power electronic,saving-energy illumination, photovoltaic supply system, design of convertersand inverters, multi-inverter parallel system, and smart grid.

Kuo-Chan Huang was born in Chia-Yi, Taiwan,R.O.C., in 1973. He received the B. S. degree inelectronics engineering from Kun Shan University,Tainan, Taiwan, in 2000, and the M. S. degree inelectrical engineering from Kaohsiung First Univer-sity of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan,in 2012, and is currently working toward the Ph.D.degree in electrical engineering at the KaohsiungFirst University of Science and Technology, Kaoh-siung, Taiwan.His field of interest includes renewable energy

sources, energy management, smart grid, and computer vision.

smart house enviromental illumination dimming and control

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