1.

0 Introduction
1.1 Project Background
Street lights are essential in a country as it provides safety and guidance to the citizens across
the vast regions in a country. People of the country have adapted to street lights, relying on it
to provide improved visibility and give them a sense of direction. It also provides safety to
the citizens and provides social and economic benefits such as:
Greatly reducing car accidents at night and economic loss.
Provides a sense of self-awareness and personal security to people.
Facilitation of smooth traffic flow.
Also provides business activities to be carries out in night and the use of public
interaction in night hours.
It is almost impossible and very risky to drive on the highways at nights without the provision
of proper lighting. Therefore the street lights must be designed in such a way so as to
minimize the glare and color recognition enhanced in a way so as to meets the peoples visual
needs.
At present the street lighting industry is growing very rapidly due to the construction of new
roads and the rapid growth of the cities. One of the main concerns today is Automation,
Power consumption and Cost-effectiveness in the field of technology related to electrical and
electronics. The main aim of Automation is to reduce the man power through the use of
Intelligent Systems. Power saving will always remain the main concern as the sources of
power (Thermal, Hydro etc.,) are getting diminished due to various reasons. To control and
maintain complex street lighting systems more economically, various street light control
systems are developed. The purpose of these systems is to easily control and reduce the
energy consumption of a cities public lighting systems with the help of different technologies.
The existing system being used for street lighting is High intensity discharge lamps (HID).
HID is presently being used in urban areas on the highway and on the streets. HID is based
on the principle of gas discharge, thus its intensity is not being controlled by any voltage
reduction method as the discharge path is broken. The disadvantages of the present system
are:

HID lamps consume more power.

Their lifespan is very less.
Its maintenance cost is very high.
It cannot be used in all outdoor applications.

Providing street lights in a country is one of the most important and expensive task. Street
lights are of high concern for a citys government due to its strategic value and its economic
importance. Efforts are being made continuously for its improvement in terms of power
saving and sustainable power generation techniques. A properly designed and controlled
street light system should provide good visibility to its citizens at night for travelling in safety
and comfort while at the same time be power saving and less costly. In this work we have
worked through some of the methods to reduce the energy costs concerning the street lights
and make it more durable and efficient. The proposed system is to control the intensity of
street light using infrared detection system. The system that is proposed utilizes the latest
technology for the sources of light using LED lamps instead of the High Pressure Sodium
Lamps (HPS) being vastly used in street lights as of today. The reason for the preference of
LED lamps instead of HPS is due to its various advantages over it such as energy saving due

to high current luminous efficiency, low maintenance cost, high color rendering index, swift
start up speed, being very durable, controllable intensity etc. Infrared red sensors are to be
used for the detection of vehicles on the highway. Addition of solar panels to the street lights
can also contribute to the energy saving.
1.1 Problem Statement
The main aim of the project is in designing and executing a street light system that is cost
efficient and is energy saving at the same time with the help of sensors used for light intensity
control. Nowadays the cost of electricity keep going higher and there is a need to implement
energy saving systems wherever necessary. This can be seen more effectively in the case of
street lights. Street Lights cover up most parts of the roads in a city. Thus the energy
consumption by it is also higher and so is the budget.
The financial costs of installing, running, maintaining and eventually disposing of lightning
equipment are considerable in a well-developed country. Huge sums of money are being
spent by the Finances Department on improving the street lighting throughout the country.
According to a report the city of Prince Albert has $930,000 budgeting towards street lighting
in the year of 2016. In the City of Kitcheners existing street light system is one of the largest
consumers of electricity with approximately 10,000,000 kilowatts of electricity annually, at
cost of roughly $1,400,000. It is estimated that the city spends almost $450,000 for the
maintenance of street lights. So in short to operate and maintain the street light system the
city needs to spend about $1,850,000 annually.
This project gives us the best solution for electrical power wastage in terms of street lights.
The main objective in the present field of technologies are Automation, Power Consumption
and Cost Effectiveness. Power saving will always remain the main concern as the sources of
power (Thermal, Hydro etc.,) are getting diminished due to various reasons. With the help of
this project the power and budget being spent on street lights can be lessened to some extent
with the intensity of street lights being kept LOW when there is no vehicle on the highway
and increasing the intensity of light as the sensor detects a vehicle approaching. Also the
maintenance cost can be reduced by using LED lamps instead of High Pressure Sodium
Lamps as the former is designed for better control over the electrical current resulting in low
current heat, voltage consumption and less heat output than the latter. These types of lights
are likely to have a long lifespan, low overall maintenance costs and significant energy
savings.
1.3 Objectives
This proposal explains the street light glowing system on detecting the movement of vehicle.
Street lights are a large consumer of energy using up to 50% of a citys energy budget.
Controlling the budget being spent on street lights is of utmost importance in developing
countries and at the same time reduce the power consumption by it. This proposal
demonstrates a street light control system which combines various technologies to achieve
the desired goal. If every country uses the proposed system then a lot of energy can be saved
and used for some other purposes.
1. The main objective of the proposed system is to control the Intensity of Street Lights.
This can be achieved by using sensors which detect the approaching vehicle and vary
the intensity accordingly. Upon the detection of approaching vehicle the intensity of
light is increased and vice versa.

2. The second objective is to use LED lighting system in place of the commonly used
High Pressure Sodium Lamps. It is more cost effective and the maintenance cost is
also relatively low.

1.4 Scope of the Project

V cc

Row of LEDs Street Lights

V cc

Arduino

V cc

IR
Receiv

LED

Progra
m

IR LED
Receiv

Road

Figure: Block Diagram of a system depicting controlling LED based street lights to
glow with vehicle detection.

The basic idea of this project is to control the glowing of LED street lights based on the input
from sensor and changing its intensity with respect to the vehicle approaching.
The system consists of 3 main components:

Arduino: The Arduino needs to be programmed according to the required goals.

Sensor: Here a number of IR sensors are used. The IR Sensor is a combination of an
IR Transmitter, IR LED and an IR receiver photodiode.
LED array: Here a row of LED lights are used in substitute for the actual street lights.

IR
Transmitt

IR
Transmitt

In normal condition when there is no vehicle on the highway there is no interruption between
the IR diode and the photodiode so the infrared radiation for the IR diode falls directly on the
photodiode which is exactly opposite to it. This causes the photodiode to fall in its conduction
state. This in turns gives a voltage output to the Arduino. The Arduino receives this output
and makes the LEDs glow dimmer.
Now consider a case when a vehicle approaches this causes the IR radiation to be blocked
and hence it does not fall onto the opposite photodiode. This gives an output signal given to
the Arduino. The Arduino accordingly makes the LEDs glow brighter for the specific time.
1.5 Resources
1.5.1 Hardware
Arduino
LEDs
Voltage Regulator
Resistors
Diodes
Photodiodes
IR LED
1.5.2 Software
Arduino Software
1.6 Project Plan/Schedule
The Gantt chart on the next page explains the schedule for this project.

Semester Starts at 5-Sept-16 (Monday, so considered Week 1) and 28th-April-2016

(Week 36) to submit Final Report.

Gantt Chart
1.7 References
1. Debaditya Chakraborty . (2015). Autonomous Highway Lighting System. Available:
http://contest.techbriefs.com/2015/entries/electronics/5895. Last accessed 28th Sept
2016.
2. Tarun Agarwal. (2016). Best Way to Control Street Lights Intensity Using High
Intensity Discharge Lamps. Available: https://www.elprocus.com/simple-way-controlstreet-light-intensity/. Last accessed 28th Sept 2016.
3. Akshay.
(2014). Smart
Street
Lighting
System. Available:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/242635704/Smart-Street-Lighting-System-ProjectReport. Last accessed 28th Sept 2016.
4. Abhale
Amol.
(2013). Automatic
Street
Light. Available:
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Automatic-Street-Light-43814317.html.
Last
accessed 28th Sept 2016.
5. James
Chadwick.
(2015). Street
Lights
Glow. Available:
http://slideplayer.com/slide/4610910/. Last accessed 28th Sept 2016.