1.0 BACKGROUND:
The project “microcontroller based intelligent traffic light system with automatic street light and warning light” was designed to tackle the traffic issues in the country so as to establish automatic traffic control and monitoring system with near perfection.
It is mandatory that every final year student of Computer Engineering should do a project work of relevance to this course of study in the second semester of final year. I have always been fascinated by the concept of microcontroller based projects and this requirement of a project work in partial fulfillment of the award of bachelor degree in Computer Engineering offered me a good opportunity to do some work in this area of interest.
1.1 Objectives of the Project
The project intelligent traffic light with automatic street light and warning light is a complex microcontroller based project that was designed to control traffic on a four way road network.
The system is embedded with sensors that automatically detect lanes with traffic and lanes that are traffic free. Based on these input from the sensors the controlling system makes its decision. Nevertheless, the system also comes with automatic street light controller that automatically switches on the street lights once there is darkness while offing the lights once the weather is bright. Further more, the warning light blinks before transitioning from one state to another (e.g from stop to ready or go).
In this design we have implored the use of both hardware and software to bring about the entire project. The hardware components are solely coordinated by the AT89S51 micro controller chip while the programming language is used to program the chip.
1.2 The Justification Of The Project
This project serves as a lasting solution to an age long nagging problem of traffic control. The system monitors the lanes to know the lanes with traffic and lanes that are traffic free and makes it’s decisions. The lanes without traffic will not be given any passing right until the sensor notices queue on them. This system when properly implemented will function with dexterity close to that of a human warden or even more.
Also embedded within the system is an automatic dark activated switch that monitors the light levels to know when to switch on the street light, as well as switching them off when due.
1.3 Scope of Project
The system is embedded with many subsections that work in a complex manner to monitor the traffic level on four lanes in other to b able to control such traffic with dexterity and absolute precision.
These subsystems are interfaced around a microcontroller. The microcontroller used is AT89S51 which is an improved version of 8051.
1.4 Constraints
The major problem was getting coloured bulbs that can suit the model. The usual light emitting diodes are too tiny for the design and the coloured A.C bulbs were rather too big for such a design and as such, I had to align six 10mm light emitting diode to serves as a display for each of the twelve displays was dim so I had to utilize an NPN transistor in switching each set of the LEDs rather than switching them directly from the microcontroller.
Furthermore, programming the microcontroller was a major constraint. The buffer (74LS154) could only sources in Lagos not to mention the street involved in perfecting my knowledge of C programming language.
1.5 Block Diagram Overview of the Stages
This project report written is designed in such a way that each chapter is related to the next as shown below
FIG 1.1: BLOCK DIAGRAM OF PROJECTS
1.6 PROJECT REPORT ORGANIZATION
The organization of the project report is well detailed and vast in its coverage. It covers all the activities encountered during the research work.
The first chapter is the introductory chapter, which covers the background, project objectives, project justification, scope of the project, constraints and block diagram overview of the stages.
Chapter two presents the literature reviews
Chapter three covers the system analysis and design in details
Chapter four presents the system implementation which entails the component layout, the wiring schedule, the wiring diagram and also the complete schematic diagram.
Chapter five covers the testing and integration of the project design
Chapter six is the summary and conclusion which includes the summary of achievements, problems encountered during project design, recommendation and suggestion for further improvement.