Design And Construction Of An Automatic Street Lighting With Fault Detection Unit

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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

Failure and irregularities in domestic power supply hinder the continuous illumination that is required for the successful completion of various activities and industrial processes. They  also pose a serious problem to lives and properties. Alternative sources of illumination, such as the use of lanterns, bush lamps and even the use of standby generators, have previously been used to check these problems. While these alternatives have been very useful they however have their shortcomings, one of which is the time lag between power failure and illumination of these sources.

There are also problems of air pollution, possibility of fire outbreak, and apparent wastage of energy and time as a result of manual switching of these sources. These challenging problems bring about the need to develop an alternative source of illumination which is an automatic street lighting control system with fault detection unit, powered by both domestic supply and an inverter system.

The street light is a raised source of light on the edges of any path way. It is designed to come ON when darkness sets in and OFF during the day. There are three main uses of street light, each requiring different types of lights and placement. They are beacon light, road way light and security light. Street light is also applicable in industries, homes, universities, farms, convention grounds and other public places. The street light ensures safe, fast and efficient movement of people and goods from one place to another.

The street light is to be switched ON and OFF in accordance with the level and state of the natural illumination, hence the need for a control system. The automatic street light control system is a simple yet more efficient concept which uses transistor as switch. By using this system, manual switching is completely removed. It automatically switches ON light when sunlight goes below the visible region of our eyes. This is done by the use of light dependent resistor (LDR), which automatically switches OFF the light when there is sunlight. By using this automatic system, energy consumption is also reduced.

Light dependent resistor, transistor and relay are the main controlling components of the project. The resistance of light dependent resistor varies in accordance with the amount of light falling on it; the transistor is operated in saturation and cut regions. This transistor switches the relay to ON and OFF the light.

Incorporated with this project is a fault detection unit designed to detect over voltage. It consists of a comparator circuit. When there is a fault, the comparator switches on relay that switches on a buzzer to give the sound. Thus, the faults can be detected by the buzzer sounds in the control room which informs the supervisor on duty that a fault has occurred on the street lights.

1.1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF STREET LIGHT
In early times, the street light was just a naked fire enclosed in a glass to prevent the wind from blowing it out. Later, gas was used as fuel, before finally the invention of incandescent lamps. As time went by, timers were incorporated into the circuit so that at a certain time in the night, the lights will switch ON, and at another preset time in the morning, they will go OFF.

There were several problems encountered in the previous street lighting methods. The early street lights were completely inefficient as the light mostly burnt out before daybreak; so someone had to go out in the night to make sure that the light had not burnt out and that it had also not been blown out.

The gas method increased the length of time with which the light burnt, but it still had the problem of blowing out. The invention of the incandescent bulb eradicated most of the stability problems but still had a problem of its own. Someone had to be switching ON and OFF the light every evening and morning respectively. Due to human unreliability, there were delays in switching ON and OFF the lights.

This led to the introduction of a timer in the circuit for the street light. The timer eradicated the problem of human instability, but still had some lapses of its own. Since the timer operated by coming ON and going OFF at a specific time, the street lights could not adjust to constantly varying weather conditions, factors like shorter day, longer night, and the likes. This was not acceptable because if the street light came on late on a day when there was longer night, or when there was mist, then the purpose was defeated for that period of time. Also, if there was longer day, then the light would remain ON even after daybreak, amounting to energy wastage.

1.3  MOTIVATION

 There are several sources of illumination such as the use of lanterns, bush lamps and even the use of standby generators which is previously been used to check the problem of failure and irregularities in domestic power supply which hinders the continuous illumination required for successful completion of various activities and industrial processes.

These sources have different shortcomings, with one having advancement over the other, which makes them inefficient in use. In general, there is time lag between power failure and their coming on and also there is energy wastage.

As a result of the above mention problems, there arises endless curiosity to provide a lasting, effective and general acceptable means which will be able to eradicate these problems hence the need for an automatic street lighting with fault detection circuit.

1.4 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
The aim of this project is to design and construct an automatic street light control system which is suitable to

• Automatically switch the streetlight ON and OFF in accordance with the level of natural illumination (i.e. day and night).
• Reduce apparent wastage of electrical energy.
• Ensure good visibility for pedestrian and motorist, thereby reducing the occurrence of road accident.
• Improve on the efficiency of street lighting.

1.5 METHODOLOGY

With present day technology a photosensitive control device is used, it is found to be reliable as it is light dependent, saves energy and time because it does not require manual operation. It switches ON the light at night and switches it OFF during the day automatically. It also involves a fault detection circuit which is mainly to detect over voltage.

1.6  PROJECT OUTLINE
This project work is divided into f stages: the power supply circuit, the automatic switching circuit, the fault detection circuit and the alarm unit. These circuits are designed using the following component; diodes, transistors, relay, transformer, resistors, capacitors, etc

The literature review of the circuit and component used is contained in chapter two. Design consideration, circuit description and calculation of circuit components are contained in chapter three. Details on the construction, testing and results are in chapter four while the concluding chapter contains recommendation and conclusion.

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