Independent security system with remote access

Abstract

This thesis essentially consists of three primary parts and has been described throughout according to their functionalities. At the core of the system lies the web server which is central to everything. Then there is the microcontroller unit itself which carries out actions in the physical world through electronic relays. The final component is an android and a web application that provides users with the interface to access the functionalities and features of the actual hardware. In a gist, a user can manipulate electronic switches located at any remote site, equipped with the microcontroller unit, through either the web or mobile application.. The hardware consists of a microcontroller unit, a Bluetooth shield, a GSM shield and six electronic relays. It uses polling to learn about commands given by users through the web or android application, from the central server. The system has an average poll time of fifteen seconds and an average fail rate of forty percent. The central server runs on a RHEL 6 server hosted on the cloud and will need load balancing once the number of concurrent connections (Sites) exceeds one thousand. It uses a PgSql Database server with a minimum storage of ten GigaBytes. The user interface consists of two parts, an android application and a web application. The android application provides a user with simpler options to work with while the web application provides complicated functionalities and features. The android application uses the API provided by the web application to fetch and push data to the central server. The web application is built on the Laravel framework for php (Version 4.2) and uses most of its features like its Templating Engine “Blade” and its Object Relational Model “Eloquent”. Overall, the system is one of its kind as it is the only open source product available with its distributed set of features and functionalities throughout multiple platforms. However, there is still much room for further developments as the project is only in its childhood.