Abstract

Before the introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT), the involvement of manpower was more involved in providing security to the home. Even with the right involvement of manpower, it is difficult to identify unusual events like fire accidents, gas leakage, and motion or presence of an intruder. The Internet of Things is a technology in which all devices communicate with each other through the internet. This technology can be used in our home security systems in an effective manner. Many existing systems failed to meet some challenging issues like multi-sensing operations, delay in alerts and non-continuous monitoring due to power breakdowns. In this paper, we developed an IoT-based smart security alert system which is used to send alerts to the owner through SMS and email whenever there is an intruder or other harmful activities are taking place at the home. This system mainly consists of Raspberry Pi-3, Pi camera, power shifting circuit, gas sensor, fire sensor, IR sensor, Ultrasonic sensor, GSM module, Buzzer and mobile. In the proposed system, whenever any intruder is detected the system will capture an image and alert the user by sending SMS and email to the user. It also provides security regarding fire and smoke by sending SMS to the user. Our proposed system is also equipped with a power shifter circuit which provides continuous supply to the circuit for continuous monitoring.

Keywords: Raspberry Pi-3, Pi camera, GSM module, Internet of Things, home security, mobile

4.1 Introduction

Nowadays, safety and security are two of the most important things in our day-to-day life. This includes security to the home, which is one of the major problems [1]. For every homeowner there is anxiety about the security of their house whenever they are not at home. Due to an increase in burglary and other unusual activities at home, security becomes very important. So there is a necessity to build an efficient security system which effectively manages all the problems, giving the the owner peace of mind about their home security in all situations.

A system is considered to be best only when it performs well in all kinds of situations by protecting their parameters. According to a report [2] by India Today, a burglary or robbery or house break-in happens in India every three minutes. So, it is necessary to make our home safe and secure.

An IoT-based smart home security alert system is the solution which reduces burglary activities at our home. In this system, some set of sensors will continuously monitor all the activities in and outside of the home. Whenever any intruder or suspicious activity is detected then the Raspberry-Pi module processes it and sends alerts to the homeowner. An email with the captured image is sent to the registered email id and SMS is sent to the registered mobile number. An AC and DC power altering circuit provides continuous power supply to the kit which makes it work continuously even in the case of main source fails [4, 5].

Raspberry Pi will act as a heart of the system because it performs all the necessary actions over the detected input by running the algorithm and producing the output as an information. It is transferred to the user in two ways:

1. SMS alerts
2. Email alerts

Here, SMS is transferred to the user by inserting a micro SIM in GSM module, and an email is sent to the user through the server over the internet.

IoT technology is used in this home security system. The IoT can be defined as a combination of physical devices which can communicate and share data with other physical devices over the internet [6].

Some of the drawbacks in the existing systems motivate us to provide a safe and more secure system which can detect any kind of burglary activities or any dangerous activities at home. The proposed system reduces all kind of threats that can cause more harm to the home. People need a security system which can inform the owner about troubling activities when-ever they are away from home. By considering all the above points, the next section highlights the research contribution of this paper.

The contributions of this paper are as follows:

• The proposed architecture which provides security to the home in a smarter way by sending alerts to the owner through SMS and email.
• It can alert the owner and the necessary action can be taken immediately to solve that issue.
• The proposed system hardware is tested against different kinds of incidents like burglary, fire, and gas leakage.

The remaining part of the paper is as follows: section 4.2 is a literature survey of the proposed system. Section 4.3 describes the architecture and the components used in the proposed system and the working of the proposed system and its implementation. Finally, section 4.4 presents the results and concludes this paper.

4.2 Literature Survey

A home security system using IoT for detecting an intruder using PIR sensor and camera module by sending email alerts to the owner through Raspberry Pi module [1, 2] has a drawback of uni-functional detecting system and alert system. This can be resolved by using the multifunctional detecting and dual alert system which is implemented in the proposed system.

A smart home security monitoring system provides home automation and monitoring through motion sensor. It sends detailed home information to the user by sending SMS to the owner [3, 4] but has a drawback of interruption in monitoring due to power breakdowns. This can be solved by providing dual power shifting circuit in the system.

An IoT-based home security system using Raspberry Pi sends the alerts to the owner with some time delay over the internet [5–8] and it can be resolved by using a GSM module which is connected to the Raspberry Pi to reduce the time delay while sending alerts to the owner [9–12].

4.3 Results and Discussions

Most of the existing systems use the Raspberry Pi module, GSM module and a single functional sensor in their work to provide security to the home [3]. But most of the systems have some drawbacks:

• Uni-functional security and monitoring system.
• Interruption in monitoring due to power breakdowns.
• Non-web cam enabled system.

According to a literature survey [3] by NCRB in 2017, various types of crimes are involved in stolen property; these are shown in the below Figure 4.1.

In this proposed system, various sensors are used, like Fire, Smoke sensors which detect the fire, gas leakage accidents, process it in Raspberry Pi and send the SMS to the mobile through the GSM module. IR and Ultrasonic sensors are used to detect the burglary activities at the home and alerts are sent to the owner by sending captured images through email over the internet. This entire system works with two power sources: one is AC power supply and the other is DC power supply. The power source is altered in case of power shutdowns for continuous monitoring.

The architecture of the proposed system is shown below in Figure 4.2.

Various components are used in the proposed system as follows.

4.3.1 Raspberry Pi-3 B+Module

Raspberry Pi module acts as processor in which each and every operation can be processed in a quick manner by running the algorithm over the operation. It acts as an intermediate between the sensors and actuators. All the remaining components in the proposed system are interconnected to the Raspberry Pi module. The Raspberry Pi contains Broadcom BCM2835 System on Chip (SOC) module. The SOC’s performance is equivalent to an old smartphone. By default, the Raspberry Pi module is operating at 700 MHZ. It also contains power source pin, 1 LAN port, 4 USB ports, SD card, HDMI port, 40 GPIO pins, DSI connector, audio jack, video connector, status LEDs, Ethernet and CSI port. The power source pin is used to provide power supply to the board, and an SD card is used to store the data in the processor. GPIO pins are used to connect the input and output ports. Status LEDs are used to display the status of the various activities in the system. CSI port is used to connect the PI camera module to the processor. Normal microprocessors cannot have the additional features like Raspberry Pi-3 B+ module [8].

4.3.5 Sensors

Various sensors used in the proposed system are as follows.

4.3.5.1 IR & Ultrasonic Sensor

IR and ultrasonic sensors are used to detect the object or intruder at home. But specifically, an Ultrasonic sensor is used to measure the distance between the intruder and the sensor. The IR sensor contains transmitter and receiver. It transmits a light when any object is detected and it returns the light to the receiver. An ultrasonic sensor is basically a 4-pin module which contains VCC, Trigger, Echo and Ground, respectively. It is used to find the distance between the intruder and the sensor. The work of the ultrasonic sensor is to transmit an ultrasonic wave when it objected by any object it returns to the receiver. We can calculate the distance by using ultrasonic sensor simply using a formulae, Distance = speed * time.

4.3.5.2 Gas Sensor

It is a hardware device which is used to detect smoke and gases like LPG, Hydrogen, CO and even methane in the home. When any gas is detected, it sends the data to the Raspberry Pi.

4.3.5.3 Fire Sensor

It is a hardware device which is used to detect fire accidents at home. Whenever any fire is detected at home, the fire sensor sends the data to Raspberry Pi.

4.3.5.4 GSM Module

It acts as a bridge between the Raspberry Pi and the end user to transfer SMS alerts to the registered mobile. It stands for Global System for Mobile Communication. In this we are using SIM900A module which contains a micro sim to transfer SMS to the user. It transfers SMS to the user when-ever any unusual incidents happen at home.

4.3.5.5 Buzzer

It is a hardware device which is used to alert the owner or neighborhood whenever any burglary/unusual activities happen.

4.3.5.6 Cloud

The VNC viewer is an application which is used to connect with the internet. It is an open-source IoT (Internet of Things) server which interacts with the Raspberry Pi module and registered IP address mobile [4]. We can view the algorithm behind this system through this application. It acts as a database where the data is stored over the cloud and it gets analyzed and displays the task it performed.

4.3.5.7 Mobile

It acts as an interface between the system and user to alert the user through SMS and email which is sent by the system with the help of VNC viewer app over the server. The algorithm contains the registered mobile number and email id to where the alerts have to be sent. We can use a smartphone to check the messages and email alerts sent by the system. The user can take necessary action upon receiving alerts from the system. Whenever any sensor senses any activity the SMS will be displayed as “Abnormal condition” in mobile. The Pi cam captures the image and sends it to the registered email through the server [2].

The hardware setup of the proposed system is as shown in Figure 4.4.

The working and implementation of an IoT-based smart home security alert system starts from detecting an unusual event at home and continues until the user receives the alerts from the system, as shown in Figure 4.5.

The system remains in idle state whenever any unusual activities are not detected. When any event is detected then the sensors sense the particular activity and send the data to the Raspberry Pi module. When any fire and gas leakage is detected, the Raspberry Pi activates the buzzer and sends the SMS to the registered mobile through GSM module. When any intruder or motion is detected, the Raspberry Pi module triggers the Pi cam to capture the image and it sends the captured image to the registered email over the cloud [1]. To avoid interruption in monitoring, a dual power supply is used when the main source fails. Finally, the end user receives both SMS and email alerts to their mobile at any place over the internet.

To fix the proposed system to the cloud some steps have to be taken. The following are the steps that should be taken while connecting system over the cloud:

1. Set up all the hardware connections in the system to Raspberry Pi module and connect it to the monitor/laptop.
2. Download and install VNC viewer application in the laptop to configure the system to the laptop.
3. Connect the server to the system by entering the IP address of the registered mobile/Ethernet which provides internet to the system.
4. Open the program file in Python shell which we have already placed into the Raspberry Pi SD memory.
5. Run the code and observe the simulation results in the Viewer window.
6. If any event is detected by the sensors then it performs the task and sends the alerts to the registered number and email which we have given in the program. Once it get executed then it continues the process until the system is off.

The results for the proposed system are shown in Figures 4.5, 4.6, and 4.7. The proposed system also contains the power altering circuit which avoids power loss in the system and is tested under different scenarios, such as:

• When fire is detected at home
• When gas leakage is detected at home
• When any intruder or motion is detected

Scenario 1: When fire is detected at home.

When fire is detected at home then the Raspberry Pi activates the GSM module to send SMS to registered mobile number and also a buzzer is activated to alert the neighbors.

Scenario 2: When gas leakage is detected at home.

When any gas leakage is detected at the home, the Raspberry Pi activates the GSM module to send an SMS to the registered mobile number and also a buzzer is activated to alert the neighbors (Figure 4.8).

Scenario 3: When any intruder or motion is detected.

When any intruder or motion is detected at home then the Raspberry Pi activates the GSM module to send SMS to registered mobile number and triggers the PI camera to capture the image of the intruder and sends the image to the registered email over the internet.

4.4 Conclusions

This paper provides the solution for the drawbacks in the existing systems by implementing an IoT-based smart home security alert system. This system improves the performance of home security by providing multisensing operations, auto power switching and dual alert systems like SMS and email. Raspberry Pi has the capabilities to connect with other devices in an easier way. The technology used in this system which is IoT (Internet of Things) is a fast-growing technology at present and it has more scope in the future. The future scope of this proposed system is that it can be extended to any kind of application, not only to home security but also automation and security by making some small improvements in the system.

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