REPORT ON

COURSE PROJECT ON
SIMPLE TOUCH ALARM SYSTEM
SUBJECT
MECHATRONICS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SR
NO.
1

TITLE
ABSTRACT

PAGE
NO.
3

INTRODUCTION

RELATED WORK

SYSTEM DESIGN AND WORKING

APLLICATION AND BENEFITS

10

CONCLUSIONS

11

BIBLIOGRAPHY

12

ABSTRACT
The system is a simple and reliable touch activated
security system and uses sensor technology to
revolutionize the standards of living. The system provides
a best solution to most of the problems faced by house
owners in their daily life. Due to its simple electronic
components nature, it is more adaptable and costeffective. The system is divided into three units; the
power supply unit which employs the use of both DC
battery and mains supply to ensure constant power
supply to the circuit, the trigger unit which is responsible
for activating the alarm unit and designed to have much
time and period and moderate sensitivity in order to
reduce the rate of false alarm, and the alarm amplitude
unit which main function is to produce amplitude alarm
sound when triggered by the trigger unit with the aim of
producing a large audible sound that can alert the entire
neighborhood or scare an intruder away. The design of
the system was achieved by considering some factors
such as economy, availability of components and
research
materials,
efficiency,
compatibility
and
portability and also durability in the design process. The
performance of the system after test met design
specifications. This system works on the principle of
touch sensor. The general operation of the system and
performance is dependent on the presence of an intruder
entering through the door and touching any part of the
door. The overall system was constructed and tested and
it work perfectly.

INTRODUCTION
Despite all the effort, resources and time that has been
devoted to the development of tools that will reduce
crime rates and make the world a safer place to live,
these problems are still on the increase. These gave rise
to the need for an increasing development in the
technology of alarm systems which utilizes various
principles such as infrared motion detection, light (photo)
sensitive electronic devices and so on This system if
properly designed will provide security and ensure alarms
are activated only when an unauthorized person try to
gain access to the protected area or device by touching
the entrance or any other part of the device.
The problem of frequent power outages in some part of
the world today gave rise to the use of an automatic
power change over switch which has the ability of
switching between the mains supply and DC battery
using a relay. This provides a passive (or standby)
redundancy for the power supply to the alarm system
thereby increasing its reliability. The system has both
security application and luxury, since it is more
comfortable and easy for an intruder to be automatically
detected without the need to employ a security guard.
This article is outline in to five major sections. The First
Section gives a general introduction of a simple and
reliable touch sensitive security system. Section two
gives presentation of related works to the aim of this
research. In Section Three, detail descriptions of the
design and implementation procedures are presented.
Section Four presents the experimental results and
discussion of the results. In Section Five, we conclude the
work with some recommendations. Finally, references
4

used in the manuscript are presented at the end of the

paper.

RELATED WORK
The idea of using sensing devices for convenience,
safety, security and quality of service purpose is not new,
but the application, cost, design method and reliability of
the system varies.
The burglar alarm is made from a complete electronic
circuit loop where by the loop is closed with a bell at the
output or a siren so as to alert the owner of what so ever
is to be secured. A central control box monitors several
motion detectors and perimeter guards and sound an
alarm when any of them are triggered. Some burglar
alarms work on the concept of magnetic contacts and
others on sensitivity. For those that work on sensors, the
sensors are normally placed in the entrance of any of the
building or restricted entrance of the rooms, in which if
the sensor receive a signal above the threshold value set
for it, it activate an alarm.
Modern duress alarm was considered, and is generally
electronic devices that vary widely in capabilities. They
are used when under threat to send alarm signals to
specific location, and are normally categorized as duress
alarm systems. The types of duress alarm systems are:
(i) Identification alarm: In this system, a simple
portable device is used to identify the access able
personnel (owner) of the device.
(ii) Panic button alarm. A push button mounted in a
fixed location.
(iii) A location alarm: a portable device that locates
and tracks the person who activated alarm.
The panic button is the most common type of duress
alarm. It is found in schools, banks, offices etc. A pre
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recorded message specifying the location and urgency is

sent to several locations such as police department or
other security agencies whenever there is a trigger of the
system. When the panic button is pushed, a wireless
signal is transmitted to the nearest installed wireless
repeater unit, which sends the signal to an alarm console.
This system does not give specific locations other than
the general pre programmed zone of the repeater. The
location alarm is a similar version of the identification.
The electronics and software of such a system produces a
positioning symbol on a console panel or map like display
Besides, most of the papers mentioned above does not
consider cost, reliability and durability in their design
procedure, and above all, this paper uses simple and easy
to get components to achieve its desired goals.

SYSTEM DESIGN AND WORKING

This section will discuss the design procedure and the
basic theory of components used for this work. The
section is further divided into two sub-sections as design
theory and system design analysis.
Stages of Implementation
The system design was implemented in three units.
These units are:
(A) The power supply unit
(B) The trigger unit
(C) The alarm/amplifier units

Power Supply Unit

The power supply unit is a 2-way automatic power supply
system. It gets input from both mains supply and battery
supply. The two independent supply systems are
connected to a relay switch which acts as an automatic
change over switch to switch on any of the available
input supply to the main circuit. The power supply unit
provides power supply to the other two units of the
circuit.

The Trigger Unit

Below is the schematic diagram of the trigger unit

As shown in Fig. 4, the schematic diagram of the trigger

unit consist of 3 major components which areNE555 timer
(IC2), Transistor (TR1) and a relay (RLY2). The 555 timer
(IC2) produces a trigger current which comes out through
its pin 3 whenever pin 2 is activated through the sensor.
Pins 4 and 8 are connected to positive power supply while
pin 1 is grounded. R3 and C2 determines the time out
period of the 555 timer (i.e. the period at which the alarm
sound) while R4 determines the sensitivity of the sensor.
The output from pin3 (trigger current) is amplified by
transistor (Tr1). R5 act as base resistor to Tr1 which is
operating in common emitter mode. The output current
from transistor (Tr1) causes the relay (Rly2) to operate
thereby switching on the alarm/amplifier unit to power
supply for duration of time determined by the time out
period of the 555 timer (IC2). D7 acts as a commutation
diode protecting the transistor (Tr1) from Back-EMF
generated by the relay coils. The 555 timer in this unit
operates in a mono stable mode.
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The Alarm Unit

The schematic diagram of the alarm unit is shown in the
below:

The alarm unit, as shown in the Fig. 5 above consists of 3

basic components which are; Two 555 timers IC3 and IC4
operating in a stable mode to produce a sire sound and a
power transistor (Tr2) used for further amplification of the
audio output. IC3 operates at a high frequency of about
481Hz, and act as a voltage controlled oscillator, while
producing a square wave. This forms the basic tone of the
siren sound system. IC4 produces another square wave
much lower frequency of about (0.5Hz) this lower
frequency alters the rhythm of the steady tone from IC3
to the desired siren sound. The output of IC4 (i.e. its
pin3) is actually coupled through R9 to control the voltage
terminal of IC3. The low frequency (0.5Hz) output from
IC4 is used to modulate the high frequency (481Hz)
produced by IC3 thereby alternating the frequency of
operation of IC3 to produce a siren sound instead of a
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continuous 481Hz tone. The final siren note is available at

pin3 of IC3 but its maximum current (as calculated on
Section 3.3.3) is 0.038A. This current is not sufficient for
5w, 8ohms speaker. The pin3 output of IC3 is therefore
fed to the transistor Tr2 for further amplification enabling
it to power the speaker thereby producing a very loud
audible siren sound.

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APPLICATIONS AND BENEFITS

The alarm sensor technology employed in this system is
the capacitance sensor. The sensors wire is usually
attached to metallic door handles, metallic, and
protectors etc. It normally require touch or close
proximity and subsequent alteration of capacitance to
trigger the alarm. This sensor type adopted in this system
helps in the reduction of false triggering of alarms and
the detection of intruders is not in any way affected by
weather condition, radio frequency or electromagnetic
disturbance.
The problem of frequent power outages in some part of
the world today gave rise to the use of an automatic
power change over switch which has the ability of
switching between the mains supply and DC battery
using a relay. This provides a passive (or standby)
redundancy for the power supply to the alarm system
thereby increasing its reliability. The system has both
security application and luxury, since it is more
comfortable and easy for an intruder to be automatically
detected without the need to employ a security guard.

12

CONCLUSIONS
It can be concluded that the sole aim of carrying out the
design, analysis and implementation of a simple and
reliable touch sensitive security system was achieved, in
that the aim was to develop a cheap, affordable, reliable
and efficient security system, which was successfully
realized at the end of the design process. One factor that
accounts for the cheapness of the product was the proper
choice of components used. The ones that were readily
available were used, while a close substitute was found
for those that were not readily available. The reliability of
the entire alarm system was considered by the
integration of an automatic change over switch into the
power supply unit such that the A.C mains supply and the
battery are cold redundant. Thus, this guarantees
constant supply of power to the main circuit. The
efficiency of the entire system was put into consideration
by the use of transistor in the common collector mode to
couple the output of the circuit to the speaker. The
system was tested and found to be working to
specifications and predictions. Summarily, a cheap and
reliable way of checking the activities of burglars and
intruders has been successfully developed, which is the
aim of the research. We can conclusively say therefore,
that the benefits of having this burglar alarm system
cannot be overemphasized. In future, we shall find a way
of improving the system by interfacing the alarm system
with the microcomputer to boost the effectiveness of the
entire system or integrating a digital door lock.

13

BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] False alarm, http://www.alarm.org/false/tips/dealer
tip/dealer tip.html
[2] British Security Industry Association (BISA), Journal
on security system section strategy for intruder alarm
system, April 2005. Page 1-3 [3] Thomas Petruzzelis,
The alarm, sensor and security circuit book, TAB Books.
Imprint of McGrawhill San Francisco, U.S.A. Reprinted
1994, Page 5-7
[4]
History
of
Security
Alarms,
http://www.icee.org/organization/history
center/fire
alarm.html

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