IRJET- Automatic Highway Lighting System

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 06 | June 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072
© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 3784
AUTOMATIC HIGHWAY LIGHTING SYSTEM
Dr. M.K. Bhasakar1, Lalit Tak2, Paras Jain3, Kritika Kulshrestha4, Preeti Chauhan5,
Nitin Kumar Meena6
1Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India
2,3,4,5,6Students of B.E. Electrical Engineering, MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur Rajasthan, India
----------------------------------------------------------------------***---------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract – One of the biggest motivators people have
for conserving electricity in their homes is the
accumulated savings in their energy bills at the end of
the year. There are other reasons why conserving
electricity is important beyond the impact on your
wallet. Electricity can be obtained from solar or wind
power, but most electricity used in homes comes from
the burning of fossil fuels such as oil or coal. These
fuels are needed to power the turbines that produce
electricity. These resources are not unlimited or
renewable; the faster they are used and the more
electricity that is consumed, the quicker they will be
depleted. The project is designed to detect vehicle
movement on highways to switch ON only a block of
highway lights ahead of the vehicle, and to switch OFF
the lights behind the vehicles to save energy. During
night all the lights on the highway remain ON for the
vehicles, but lots of energy is wasted when there is no
vehicle is movement. This proposed system providesa
solution for energy saving. This is achieved by sensing
an approaching vehicle and switches ON a block of
highway lights ahead of the vehicle. As the vehicle
passes, the lights behind the vehicle switch OFF
automatically. So when there are no vehicles on the
highway, then all the lights remain OFF. Sensors used
on either sides of the road send logic commands to
microcontroller to switch ON/OFF the LEDs. Intensity
control is also possible by Pulse Width Modulation
(PWM) generated by the microcontroller. Thus this
way ofdynamicallychangingintensityON/OFFhelpsin
saving a lot of energy.
Key Words: Microcontroller, IR Sensor, Highway Light,
Led, Potential divider.
1. Introduction
Generally, highway lights are switched on for whole
night and during the day, they are switched off. But
during the night time, highway lightsarenotnecessary
if there is no traffic. Saving of this energy is very
important factor these days as energy resources are
getting reduced day by day. Alternatives for natural
resources are very less and our next generations may
face lot of problems because of lack of these natural
resources. Highway lighting provides a safe night time
environment for all road users including pedestrians.
Providing highway lighting is one of the most
important and expensive responsibilities of a city.
Lighting can accountfor10–38%ofthetotalenergybill
in typical cities worldwide. Highway lighting is a
particularly critical concern for public authorities in
developing countries because of its strategic
importanceforeconomicandsocialstability.Inefficient
lighting wastes significant financial resources every
year, and poor lighting creates unsafe conditions.
Energy efficient technologies and design mechanism
can reduce cost of the highway lighting drastically.The
main objective of the project is to reduce the power
consumption and efficient utilization of renewable
sources for the application of highway lightening.
Hence, this project is aimed at design and
implementation of an automatic system to reduce
energy consumption of highway lighting system up to
the maximum possible extent. The availability of
vehicle is sensed by using an array of Infrared Sensors
(IR), which senses the traffic movement.LDRis usedto
detect the presence of day light. In this system, the
highway lights are switched ON/OFF automatically
during the presence of the traffics only during the
nights.
1.1 Existing Systems
The existing systems consist of manual controls which
need constant monitoring and maintenance.
Considering the wastage of energy due to manual
control many systems have been introduced. These
systems are designed in such a manner that they could
reduce their intensity and save as much energy as
possible. Systems like these use LEDs (Light Emitting
Diode) instead of HID(HighIntensityDischarge)lamps
due to dimming feature. There is a time slot allotted
during which the intensity of the system keeps
reducing and turns the lights OFF at morning.Thetime
slot starts when it is specified. Reduction of intensity
starts gradually at midnight when it is not much dark
and there is not much traffic and is switched OFF at 6

in the morning. Some use IR (Infrared Ray) sensors to
detect vehicles. Existing systems do overcome the
drawbacks of HID based systems, but do not save
enough energy as they are time based also in seasons
likemonsoontheenvironmentremainsdarkcompared
to regular days. Winters bring the fog and if the lights
are dim it could result into a great accident or disaster.
Therefore still some improvements in systems like
these are needed.Timeslotbasedsystemsconsiderthe
time slot as an advantage, but it actually is a drawback
as it could not work in all conditions.
2. Automatic Highway Lighting System
The main aim of this project is that it saves energy by
putting on the lights of the system only when the
system detects movement of vehicle. The system
switches on the highway light ahead of the vehicle and
switches off the trailing lights simultaneously. Inorder
to detect movement of vehicles, sensors are used. The
system automatically puts on the lights that are ahead
of the vehicle detected and as soon as the vehicle
moves ahead, the trailing lightsareswitchedoff.Thisis
better than the existing system where the highway
lights are kept on always unlike this system where the
highway lights are put on only when movement of
vehicle is detected which helps in saving lot of energy.
During day time these lights are dim as this system has
the capability to sense external lights.Thusthissystem
senses the external light andthenaccordinglyswitches
ON or OFF the highway lights. It uses PWM to control
the intensity through microcontroller. The IR sensors
sense the vehicle movements and send it to an Atmega
family microcontroller that initiates commands for
switching the lights ON/OFF.
Generally, street light controlling system is a simple
concept which uses a transistor to turn ON in the night
time and turn OFF during the day time. The entire
process can be done by a using a sensor namely LDR
(light dependent resistor). Nowadays conserving the
energy is an essential part and day by day energy
resources are getting decreased. So our next
generations may face a lot of problems due to this lack
of resources. This system doesn’t need a manual
operation to turn ON/OFF the highway lights. The
highway light system detects whether there is need of
light or not.
During the night time all the lightsonthehighwayroad
remain on throughout the night, so the energy loss will
be high when there is no movement of vehicles. This
project gives a solution for saving the energy. This is
attained by detecting an approaching vehicle by
turning ON the highway lights. As the vehicle passes
away from the highway light, then the lights get turn
OFF. If there are no vehicles on the road, then all the
lights will turn OFF.
The infrared sensors are placed on each side of the
road that are used to detect the vehicle movement and
send the logic signals to a microcontroller to turn on/
off the LEDs for a specific distance. Therefore, this way
of dynamically switching ON and OFF the highway
lights helps in reducing the power consumption.
The power supply of this project comprises of a step-
down transformer, which steps down the voltage from
230v to 12V AC. This is transformed to a DC using a
Bridge rectifier. A capacitor is used to remove the
ripples using a capacitive filter, andit is then regulated
to +5V from 12v using a 7805 IC voltage regulator,
which is compulsory for the microcontroller as well as
other components.
Furthermore, this project can be extended by using
suitable sensors for detecting the street light failure,
and then sending an SMS to the control department
through a GSM modem for suitable action.
By using this project a lot of energy can be saved. The
proposedsystemusesLEDsinsteadofotherlamps.The
project is especially designed for highway lighting in
remote rural and urbanareaswherethetrafficislowat
times. The system is multipurpose, extendable and
totally variable to user needs.
The applications of this highway light that glows on
detecting vehicle movement mainly involve in
highways, real time highway lights, hotels, parking
areas and restaurants, etc. The advantages are; low
cost, more life span and energy can be saved.
3. AUTOMATIC HIGHWAY LIGHTING SYSTEM
CIRCUIT DESIGN
The system basically consists of an LDR, Infrared
sensor, Power supply, relays and Microcontroller.
3.1 LDR
LDRs or Light Dependent Resistors are very useful
especially in light/dark sensor circuits. Normally the
resistance of an LDR is very high, sometimes as high as
1000000 ohms, but when they are illuminated with
light resistance drops dramatically. Electronic opto
sensors are the devices that alter their electrical

characteristics, in the presences of visible or invisible
light. The best-known devices of this type are the light
dependent resistor (LDR), the photo diode and the
phototransistors. Lightdependentresistorasthename
suggests depends on light for the variation of
resistance.
Fig - : 1 LDR circuit
3.2 Infrared Sensor
An infrared sensor is an electronic device that emits in
order to sense some aspects of the surroundings.AnIR
sensor can measure the heat of an object as well as
detects the motion as well as the presence of an object
due to intervention or interruption. These type of
sensors measure only infrared radiation, rather than
emitting it that is called as a passive IR sensor. Usually
in the infrared spectrum, all the objects radiate some
form of thermal radiations. These types of radiations
are invisible to our eyes that can be detected by an
infrared sensor. The emitter is simply an IR LED (Light
Emitting Diode) and the detector is simply an IR
photodiode which is sensitive to IR light of the same
wavelength as that emitted by the IR LED. When IR
light falls on the photodiode, the resistances and these
output voltages,changeinproportiontothemagnitude
of the IR light received. An IR sensor is a device which
detects IR radiation falling on it.
Fig - : 2 Circuit Diagram Of IR Sensor
3.3 Regulated Power Supply
Usually, we start with an unregulated power
supply ranging from 9volt to 12volt DC. To make a
5volt power supply, IC 7805 voltage regulator as
shownin figure has been used. The IC7805 is simple to
use. Simply connect the positive leadformunregulated
DC power supply (anything from 9VDC to 12VDC) to
the input pin, connect the negative lead tothecommon
pin and then turn on the power, a 5 volt supply from
the output pin will be gotten.
Fig - : 3 IC 7805 Voltage Regulator
3.4 Relays
A relay is usually an electromechanical device
that is actuated by an electrical current. The current
flowing in one circuit causes the opening or closing of
another circuit. Relaysarelikeremotecontrolswitches
and are used in many applications because of their
relative simplicity, longlife,andprovenhighreliability.
Relays are used in a wide variety of applications
throughout industry, such as in telephone exchanges,
digital computers and automation systems. Highly
sophisticated relays are utilized to protect electric
power systems against trouble andpowerblackoutsas
well as to regulate and control the generation and
distribution of power. In the home, relays are used in
refrigerators, washingmachines anddishwashers,and
heating and air-conditioning controls. Although relays
are generally associated with electrical circuitry, there
are manyothertypes,suchaspneumaticandhydraulic.
Input may be electrical andoutputdirectlymechanical,
or vice versa.
Fig - : 4 Circuit using a relay

3.5 Atmega328p Microcontroller
A microcontroller is a small computer on a
single integrated circuit. In modern terminology, it is
similar to, but less sophisticated than, a system on a
chip (SoC); a SoC may include a microcontroller as one
of its components. A microcontroller contains one or
more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and
programmable input/output peripherals. Program
memory in the form of ferroelectric RAM, NOR
flash or OTP ROM is also often includedonchip,aswell
as a small amount of RAM. Microcontrollers are
designed for embedded applications, in contrast to
the microprocessors used in personal computers or
other general purpose applications consisting of
various discrete chips. Microcontrollers are used
in automatically controlled products anddevices,such
as automobile engine control systems, implantable
medical devices, remote controls, office machines,
appliances, power tools, toys and other embedded
systems. This project mainly focuses on ATMEGA 328
microcontroller. Its pin diagram is shown in figure.
Fig - : 5 Atmega328p Microcontroller Pin Diagram.
4. AUTOMATIC HIGHWAY LIGHTING CONTROL
CIRCUIT DESIGN
The highway model consists of 7 LEDs as highway
lights and 8 pairs of photodiodes-IR diodes used as
sensors, variable resistors and transistors which acts
as switch as explained above. The IR diodes are placed
on one side of the road and photodiodes are placed on
the other side of the road, directly facing the IR diodes.
Fig - : 6 Block Diagram of The System
Consider the case when there is no vehicle on the
highway. In this case, the IR radiation emittedfromthe
IR diode directly falls on the photodiode which is
exactly opposite to it. Thiscausesthephotodiodetofall
in conduction state. This implies that photodiode
conducts and current passes through it. The current
passes through the photodiode and goes through the
variable resistor and the base-emitter region of the
transistor. This in turn connects the collector of the
transistor to the emitter. From the circuit diagram we
can see that emitter is connected to ground which
implies that the collector also goes to the ground. The
collector region of the transistor is connected to the
port 1 (input port) which in turn goes to ground i.e.,
logic ZERO. So, to summarize we can say that, when
there is no vehicle on the highway, then all the inputs
to the microcontroller port 1 is ZERO.
Consider the case when a vehicle obstructs the IR
radiation path. In this case, IR radiation is blocked and
hence it does not fall on the photodiode. This in turn
implies that photodiode doesn't conduct. Hence there
is no current flowing through this first transistor. So,
the collector is at HIGH state. Let us assume that the
first Photodiode-IR diode pair IR path is obstructed.
This leads to a transition from ZERO to HIGH at P1.0
pin.
The microcontroller is programmedinsuchawaythat,
whenever the pin P1.0 goes high, then a window of
seven led lights ahead from the vehicle glows. In other
words, the respective pins of port 2 and port 3 go

HIGH. This process goes on i.e., as the vehicle moves
forward, the highway lights ahead of it glows and the
trailing lights goes back to its original off state.
There are two basic modes of operation,
1. In the first mode of operation, initially when the
vehicle is not sensed, all the streetlights will be in dim
state. This is achieved by use of pulse width
modulation technique through the program stored in
the microcontroller. When a vehicle is not present on
the highway, then the streetlights are made to glow for
about 1ms and then for 100ms they are switched off.
Thus, we get streetlights with less brightness. When a
vehicle is sensed, all the streetlightsareilluminatedfor
1ms and the window of streetlights are illuminated for
100ms. Thus we have a PWM wave of 99% duty cycle
for those seven LEDs.
2. In the second mode of operation, when the vehicle is
not present, all the streetlights will be in dark state.
When a vehicle is sensed then the window of
streetlights is illuminated in front of the vehicle.
5. Conclusions
This project of Automatic Highway Lighting System
with Light Sensing is a cost effective, practical,
ecofriendly and the safest way to saveenergy.Itclearly
tackles the two problems that world is facing today,
saving of energy and also disposal of incandescent
lamps, very efficiently. According to statistical data we
can save more that 40 % of electrical energy that is
now consumed by the highways. Initial cost and
maintenance can be the draw backs of this project.
With the advances in technology and good resource
planning the cost of the project can be cut down and
also with the use of good equipment the maintenance
can also be reduced in terms of periodic checks. The
LEDs have long life, emit cool light, donor have any
toxic material and can be used for fast switching. For
these reasons our project presents far more
advantages which can over shadow the present
limitations. Keeping in view the long term benefitsand
the initial cost would never be a problem as the
investment return time is very less.
LDR sensor is the main conditions in working the
circuit. If the conditions have been satisfied the circuit
will do the desired work accordingtospecificprogram.
Each sensor controls theturningONorOFFthelighting
column. The lights has been successfully controlled by
microcontroller. With commands from the controller
the lights will be ON in the places of the movement
when it's dark. Finally this control circuit can be used
in various purposes.
By using automatic highway light,onecansavesurplus
amount of energy which is done by replacing sodium
vapor lamps by LED and adding an additional feature
for security purposes.Itpreventsunnecessarywastage
of electricity, caused due to manual switching of
streetlights when it’s not required. It provides an
efficient and smart automatic highway light control
system with the help of IR sensors. It can reduce the
energy consumption and maintains the cost. The
system is versatile, extendableandtotallyadjustableto
user needs.
6. Future Scopes
The above project we can develop solar street light
system with Automatic highway light controller. The
system can be powered from a battery, which can be
charged during daytimebyharvestingthesolarenergy
through a solar cell. The solar energy harvested from
sunlight can be stored, inverted from DCvoltagestoAC
voltage using sun tie converter. The AC voltage can be
stepped down rectifiedandusingthecircuit.Theabove
mentioned strategy will enable us to harvest solar
energy in an effective way for the operation of the
circuit and for powering the street light also.
6. Reference
[1] Velaga, R. and Kumar,A.2012.Techno-conomic
evaluation of the feasibility of a smart street
system: A case study of rural India. Procedia
Social and Behavioral Sciences. 62, 1220-1224
[2] EchelonCorp.https://www.echelon.com/applic
ations/street-lighting/
[3] Bruno, A., Di Franco, F. and Rasconà, G. 2012.
Smartstreet lighting. EE Times
[4] The e-JIKEI Network Promotion Institute, et al.
Smart street light system with communication
means
[5] "'Smart' streetlamps light up when you're near -
CNN.com". Edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 24-12-
2015
[6] "The Smart Lighting Concept" (PDF). Future
Internet Lab Anhalt. Retrieved 10-10-2017.
[7] K.Y. Rajput, G. Khatav, M. Pujari, P. Yadav,
Intelligent Street Lighting System Using Gsm,

International Journal of Engineering Science
Invention, Vol2,Issue3,March2013,PP.60-69.
[8] D. A. Devi and A. Kumar, Design and
Implementation of CPLD based Solar Power
Saving System for Street Lightsand Automatic
Traffic Controller, International Journalof
Scientific and Research Publications, Vol. 2,
Issue11, November 2012.
[9] K. S. Sudhakar, A. A. Anil, K. C. Ashok and S. S.
Bhaskar,AutomaticStreetLightControlSystem,
International Journal of Emerging Technology
and Advanced Engineering, Vol. 3, May 2013,
PP. 188-189
[10] White, Kent. "Brazing versus Soldering". TM
Technologies, Tools & Methods for Better
Metalworking. Archived fromtheoriginalon23
June 2017. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
[11] Seher Yusnieva Kadirova, Daniel Ivanov
Kajtsanov, A Real time street lighting control
system, in “Microclimatic data collection
multisensorysystemfordesignofenergymodel
in residential buildings”, Electrical Apparatus
and Technologies (SIELA) 2018 20th
International Symposium on, pp. 1-3, 2018.
[12] Dhiraj Sunehra, Sangem Rajasri (2017)
“Automatic street light control system using
wireless sensor networks”havebeendiscussed
in area of power system.
[13] MustafaSaad,(October2013)“AutomaticStreet
Light Control System Using Microcontroller”.

IRJET- Automatic Highway Lighting System

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IRJET- Automatic Highway Lighting System