**3.2 System design description**

Lighting automation system in low traffic roads is intended to implement in the illuminated roads. It is supposed to have source power supply, feeder pillar with controller, light poles with day/night sensor. Such conventional system can be upgraded by new automated system. The methodology of lighting automation system in low traffic roads is achieved by applying the moving object recognition technique using cameras. Firstly, the road is sectionalized into several zones. Each zone depends on how much distance is existed between two feeder pillars, typically 400 meters. So, light poles in each zone will be switch on/off together. It means that each zone will have its feeder pillar (control panel) with controller, day/night sensor, motion sensor, and camera. Night vision cameras are installed on the road in such way to detect the vehicle arrival-to and departure-from each zone. The controller is designed to illuminate only the zones in which the vehicle is detected. The type and span of the zone are calculated based on the road design considering straight spans and roundabout.

## *3.2.1 Lighting control conceptual design*

The control scheme of the automatic lighting system is illustrated in **Figure 2**. Day/night switch detects darkness status to start the controller and hence motion sensor and night vision cameras. Now, let us consider that there are two adjacent zones (Zone N) and (Zone N + 1), and vehicle enters to Zone (N + 1). Mainly, day/ night sensor and motion sensors of (Zone N + 1) need to be installed before the camera of (Zone N + 1), while camera of (Zone N + 1) need to be installed in (Zone N) near to the end. This is because camera need to start capture the moving objects images only after motion sensor detects any object in advance and sends the signal to the camera to start operation, and hence the controller takes the proper decision for switch the light of (Zone N + 1) before the object enter the zone.

For that, camera is installed on a light pole about 80 m before each zone. This distance provides approximately 2 seconds for data processing and control assuming maximum speed is approximately 60 km/hour. **Figure 3** illustrates the installation location of (Zone N + 1) camera, day/night sensor and motion sensors in (Zone N).

The software in the controller extracts the image from the camera and analyze it to determine whether the object is vehicle or not. If the object is not a vehicle, no action is taken by controller. In case the object is vehicle, signal shall be sent to Zone N + 1 lighting feeder pillar to switch on light of Zone N + 1 Simultaneously signal shall be sent to Zone N controller to switch off lightning system of Zone.

**Figure 2.** *Automatic lighting system schematic.*

**Figure 3.** *Zone definition.*

#### *3.2.2 Switching on/off lighting system for a zone*

As we explained above, each Zone has its own lighting control system consists of Day/night switch, motion sensor, night vision camera, controller and feeder pillar.

When the controller of any zone detect "vehicles" the digital counter inside this controller counts the number of these detected vehicle (Nin). In the same time, the same controller receives from the digital counter inside the controller of next Zone updated number of the vehicle interring the next zone (Nout). The communication between the controllers can be achieved by Power Line Telecommunications method. or RS-485 cable. If the difference between the these to numbers (Nin-Nout) is zero, this means that no vehicles exist in this zone, and the controller switches "Off" the light. As long as (Nin- Nout) is not zero, the light of the zone will be kept "On". This methodology insures that the lighting system for any zone is kept "On" if any vehicle(s) still in that zone for any reason such as accident, maintenance or temporary parking. Also, this methodology insures that the lighting system of the zone free of any vehicle is "OFF".

In **Figure 4**, flow chart for two consequent lighting system control logic is illustrated.

#### **3.3 Vehicle image recognizing**

Several researches are done to recognize the vehicle at night based on vehicle lamp detection [25, 26]. This method will not work in case the vehicle lights are switches off for any reason. Another researches are carried out to detect the information in vehicle number-plate using artificial intelligent methods [27, 28]. However, using artificial intelligent method is time consuming and not useful for the application of the proposed system. In this application, recognition of the number-plate rectangular frame is simple method and more than enough to confirm that the moving object is "Vehicle".

#### *3.3.1 Methodology*

The process of detection of vehicle number-plate consists of the following steps: capture of image, pre-processing, plate region extraction (**Figure 5**).

*3.3.2 Capture of image*

*Vehicle recognition flowchart.*

**Figure 5.**

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**Figure 4.**

*Control flow chart for zone N and zone N + 1 lighting system.*

*Economic Applications for LED Lights in Industrial Sectors*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95412*

In this step, the image is captured by electronic devices such as infrared digital camera or any other camera suitable for night time. The image captured is stored in JPEG format. After that the captured image is converted into gray scale image.

*Economic Applications for LED Lights in Industrial Sectors DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95412*

**Figure 4.** *Control flow chart for zone N and zone N + 1 lighting system.*
