Smart Security Vault System 
Published: 2021-06-07 15:36:09


OVERVIEW

Background: 
I was thinking about the project to make in this unit. Almost 300,000 intrusion cases were reported in Victoria in 2019, which lead me to making an intrusion system to prevent such things from happening. Moreover, I believe that a safeguard system for the vaults is one of the most important things that should be focused on. I once encountered an incident in which some of my confidential documents were read by someone else. Hence, I made this project so that I could not only protect my own private documents as well as address the general problem stated above.
 
Problem Statement: 
In the contemporary world, the need of a good security system has been heavily emphasized. There are lots of vault security systems available in the market but most of them are expensive and need constant maintenance. As a vault carry important resources and documents, negligence to safeguard the vault can have major negative impacts. So, it is necessary that a good system is implemented. Modern security systems, though very effective, are expensive and not feasible for the small-scale industries and shops especially in pandemics such as COVID where the economy has taken a hit. 
My project is a good solution for the above difficulties as it is very easy to setup, almost no maintenance issues and the data is secured and non-visible to third party. Moreover, the system has great potential and can be customized easily. 

REQUIREMENTS:
The project requires the following hardware and software: 

Hardware used: 
•	Raspberry pi 3
•	Micro-SD card slot for loading operating system and data storage
•	5V DC power source
•	PIR motion sensor (generic)
•	Ultrasonic distance sensor: HC-SR04
•	LED lights
•	Buzzer
•	Jumper wires
•	Breadboard
•	Resistors 
Software Used:
•	Raspberry Pi Raspbian
•	IFTTT Maker service
•	Raspberry Pi Thonny Python IDE


Design Principles:

The design uses very simple mechanism. The principle that I focused more on are: 
1.	Cost effective: Made such that set up costa and maintenance cost is very less. 
2.	Effectiveness: The project is simple yet very powerful and is able to perform as expected without any unnecessary component.
3.	Design for storing: This project is optimised for less storage.
4.	Designed for affordability: The project components are easily available online.
The working mechanism is shown below: 
  
 


Assuming the vault is kept in a room/office, the LED will be turned ON when someone enters the room. This will be done with the help of HC-SR04 sensor. The sensor will repeatedly calculate the distance and will perform certain action when the conditions are achieved. If the intruder continues to approach the vault, then after a certain distance from the vault, an email is sent to the owner alerting about the presence of someone near the vault. In case someone breaks in the vault and tries to steal, PIR motion sensor will sense the movement inside the vault and thus inform the owner about the intrusion. 
I have used raspberry pi 3 as it is most used tech and popular for the embedded due to its powerful abilities. Moreover, as it has 40 pins it is able to work with majority of the embedded sensor.
The use LED is done so that it provides the function of automation and make things easier for other such as old people. Led also provide the indication of some presence though not near the safe.
I have used IFTTT (if this then that) so that owner can act against anything untoward. 
Buzzer is used to alert the intrusion of the someone inside the safe. Which I believe is quite effective in intimidating the robber.
I used ultrasonic sensor outside as the intruder may not necessarily be after the safe. For instance, maybe the intruder has come to take some documents on the table. So, it would be cumbersome if the email is sent every time even if the intruder is not near the vault. 
PIR motion sensor senses the movement and very suitable as it will detect any motion that has happened and will be a little faster than ultrasonic sensor which has calculate the distance for further output. 
These all ensures that the design is optimised and make it very effective.

Prototype Architecture: 
  

 






The Components Used: 

PIR motion sensor: 
The PIR motion sensor refers to Pyroelectric ("Passive") InfraRed Sensor. It has three pins namely, Ground pin, OUT pin and VCC pin.
 

Ultrasonic Motion Sensor (HC-SR04): 
This is a very popular sensor used in many embedded projects. It is able to calculate distance using the technique similar to RADAR and bat. It has four pins namely: Echo, VCC, Trigger and Ground.

  

Buzzer: 
The piezo buzzer that I have used have a positive and negative end. 
LED: 
These are used to light up the room.
       
Jumper wire and breadboard: 
These are used to connect the sensors and make a circuit.


GITHUB CODE 
The link to the GitHub is here:
https://github.com/souravsharm/Smart_Vault_system.git

Testing the system: 
Any system must go through testing to make sure it is working correctly even in different situations. I have used different testing method to ensure that the system gives the expected output rather than some non-logical error.
1.	I tried placing the sensors in different directions to make sure that the ultrasonic distance sensor senses the data correctly.
2.	I also made sure to test the system in different cases: 
a.	Case 1: When the intruder enter the premises but does not go near the safe.
Conclusion: The result was as expected. The LED turned ON but no email was sent to the owner.

b.	Case 1: When the intruder is very near the vault but does not break the safe.
Conclusion: The result was as expected. No motion was detected and thus no further actions were taken.
Therefore, by considering different situations I made sure that no unusual activity was found in the system’s working.
3.	I also used my system many times over a period of a day and was able to verify the correct working of the sensors and the systems. Also, the emails were received correctly.

User Manual: 
Please watch the videos provided in the link at the end to setup the system easily.

In this part, a brief go through on the project is discussed.
The following diagram describes the circuit built: 
PIR Motion sensor: 
•	Ground Pin: Ground Pin of the sensor is connected to the ground pin of raspberry pi, here, pin 34. 
•	OUT Pin: OUT Pin of the sensor is connected to the GPIO pin of raspberry pi, here, pin 40. 
•	VCC Pin: VCC Pin of the sensor is connected to the GPIO pin of raspberry pi, here, pin 2.
Ultrasonic distance sensor (HC-SR04): 
•	Ground Pin: Ground Pin of the sensor is connected to the ground pin of raspberry pi, here, pin 6.
•	VCC Pin: VCC Pin of the sensor is connected to the GPIO pin of raspberry pi, here, pin 2.
•	Echo Pin: Echo pin is connected to GPIO pin 8
•	Trigger: Trigger pin is connected to GPIO pin 10
LED: 
•	Positive pin: The positive pin is connected to pin 7 via resistor so that it does not fuse the bulb.
•	Negative pin: The positive pin is connected to pin 9.
Piezo Buzzer:
•	Positive pin: The positive pin is connected to pin 16.
•	Negative pin: The positive pin is connected to pin 14.
Software Used: 
•	I have used IFTTT: this software helped me to send emails to owner whenever required. I have used Webhooks service on the IFTTT to send emails to the owner. This works with the help of key provided by the IFTTT.
•	Thonny Python IDE: I have used the default python ide installed in the raspberry pi.
After the setup, we need to upload the code in the raspberry pi’s thonny python ide.
Next one need to have IFTTT account and then make a applets to inform the user of the intrusion. 
 
Also we can to make the Key of the IFTTT to connect to the system via webhooks. The key can be found in IFTTT site. Go to Explore-> search  “webhooks”- > Documentation
 
The Last step is just to make the components and the circuit join and run the code.
 
	




Conclusion: 
In conclusion, I will be going through the mistakes and difficulties that I had to face in making of the project and how I corrected them. 
Firstly, I had to face many difficulties regarding the connection of the different sensor and understanding the how to simultaneously code them. I also had trouble ranging the PIR motion sensor as its range and sensitivity very large and thus was difficult to implement correctly. Sending the emails to the owner from the sensor data also was a big obstacle.
Moreover, due to the COVID situation, I had to face many obstacles which affected my study negatively such as financial crisis and stress for the family situation. These lead to me being not able to buy many sensors which I needed to make a good project.



Limitations:
There are some limitations to the project. Firstly, the emails will be sent to the owner and alarm will be raised even if the owner is the one who opened the vault. Though the above mentioned can also be used to maintain the record for when the vault is accessed.
Improvements:
If I were to make the project once again, I would use different sensor such as pi camera module (to capture the image of the robber), GPS to track the location of the owner so that the system automatically changes to the “guard” mode. I would also make sure 
to implement recognition system so that owner may be able to contact the police with a single touch. 

This unit is under Deakin, School of IT, SIT210- Embedded Systems Development

The links to video explaining the code is here:
https://youtu.be/xQmNCvOVJD4

The link to the video to setup the system is: https://youtu.be/UkTHDM_tzes