DENSITY BASED TRAFFIC LIGHT

CONTROLLER
K.L.N College of Engineering,
Anandhi M Pottapalayam 630 612, India
Department of Electronics and Communication Email id: [email protected]
Engineering

Abstract Traffic has become a major issue nowadays. changing traffic density. When the traffic density increases
It has become a mandatory work to control the traffic more than a limit at one particular side, it needs a long green
because of rapid increasing automobiles and delays in light duration to ease traffic flow. These IR sensors are used for
traffic lights. As a solution to this problem, we have to go line of sight object detection using which the system gets an
for density based traffic lights system. This project input of the traffic density. Traffic density is measured as low,
harnesses the processing capabilities and interfacing medium and high. Based on this density reading the system
simplicity of Arduino to measure load input which denotes adjusts and varies the traffic signal duration for that particular
the number of vehicles in each lane and sets delay of way. This system can also be further enhanced by using
corresponding signal LEDs accordingly. The heart of this multiple such systems across the city and synchronizing them
circuit is an Arduino, which is connected to four IR sensors through a network.
measuring the number of vehicles passing through the four
lanes. During the first 10 seconds, density is measured II. PURPOSE OF THE SYSTEM
which is the number of vehicles passing through the lane The main advantage of this system is that it reduces the waiting
and then processed and accordingly delays are set. Thus, the time for vehicles. As we know that time is the most valuable
road with more vehicles is shown green light which indicates thing now-a-days, so many of us break the traffic rules just to
GO for a more duration which makes it possible for efficient reach at time to their destination. The reason behind breaking
traffic control. The major components in the scenario the traffic rules is to wait for more time whether the traffic is
include Arduino Uno, IR sensors and LEDs. This project present or not. So, the proposed system is able to reduce this
uses an Arduino Uno as microcontroller. Arduino gets its problem of people and also to minimize the number of accidents
four inputs from IR sensor which are set so that they receive happening on the road every day.
signals form vehicles coming towards the road. The IR
readings are logged into the Arduino memory for the first
10 seconds. After the initial 10 seconds, the readings are III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
compared to set levels so that the output delay for LED is
calculated. This happens for every of the four main control
The system we put forward identifies the density of traffic on
lines for the signal output. Thus the output manages the
individual lanes and thereby adjusts the timing of the signals.
traffic control as a solution for the major crisis.
IR transceivers calculate the obstructions and supply an idea
Keywords Arduino Uno, IR sensor, density control, about the traffic density on an exacting lane and feed this
traffic lights response to a controller unit which will make the necessary
decisions as and when required.IR receiver receives IR rays that
are diffused by IR transmitter. Usually IR receiver has high
I. INTRODUCTION resistance in order of mega ohms, when it is receiving IR rays
the resistance is very low. The effective voltage of IR receiver
The real time traffic light controller is a complex piece of is 2 to 3V. We have to place these IR couple in such a way that
equipment which consists of power cabinet, main controller or when we place a hindrance in front of this IR couple, IR
processor, relays, control panel with switches or keys, receiver should be able to receive the transmitted IR rays. When
communication ports etc. In this project, a simple traffic light we give the power, the transmitted IR rays hit the entity and
system for a 4 way intersection is implemented using Arduino reflect back to the IR receiver. Instead of traffic lights, we can
UNO. Although it is not the ideal implementation for real life use LEDs (RED, GREEN, YELLOW). In normal traffic
scenarios, it gives an idea of the process behind the traffic light system, we have to light the LEDs on time basis. If the traffic
control system. The aim of the project is to implement a simple density is high on any particular path, then glows green LED of
traffic light controller using Arduino UNO where the traffic is that particular path and glows the red LEDs for remaining paths.
controlled in a pre-defined timing system. Traffic signals In the nonexistence of any traffic sensing fraction the system
operating on fixed signal timing delays do not adjust to the works as a ordinary system giving equal stage of time to green
signal in all the lanes. As soon as the traffic sensing fraction
comes into the image the role of the IR modules comes into
play. Three IR sensors attached on each lane give an indication
of traffic on that specific lane with the previous IR signal being
obstructed (i.e. all three obstructed) indicates and the first and
the second (only one or two) IR signal being cut off indicates
low and medium traffic respectively. With each IR signal being
cut our system adds few seconds to the timer of the green signal
and thus for maximum time the signal will be green in the lane
of high density traffic and the signal will be green for minimum
time in the lane of low traffic.
The components are
- ATmega8 controller
- PCB board
- IR sensors -4
- LEDs 12 (4 red, 4- green, 4- yellow)
- 12v battery or adapter
- Serial cable
- Connecting wires
A. Microcontroller
This is a 8-bit high performance microcontroller of Atmels
Mega AVR family with low power consumption. In this the
most of the instructions execute in one machine
cycle.Atmega16 will work on a maximum frequency of
16MHz.the mega16 has 16 KB programmable flash memory,
static RAM of 1 KB and EEPROM of 512 Bytes. RAM is1 KB
The circuit is made up of 4 IR sensors, atmega8 and EEPROM of 512 Bytes. The ATmega16 is a 40 pin
microcontroller, 4 traffic lights. The IR sensor just looks like a microcontroller. It has 32 I/O lines which are divided into 4 8-
LED lights. These IR transmitters always reflect the IR rays bit ports labeled as PORTA, PORTB, PORTC and PORTD.
from it. The operating voltage of this transmitter is 2 to 3v. ATmega16 has various in-built peripherals like USART, ADC,
These rays are not visible to the human eye, but we can view Analog Comparator, SPI, JTAG etc. Each I/O pin has
these IR rays through camera. IR receiver receives IR rays that alternative task related to peripherals.
are just transmitted by the IR sensor. The IR receiver has
normally high resistance in order of mega ohms, when it is
B. IR Transmitter and Receiver
receiving IR rays the resistance is very low. The generally
voltage to operate the IR receiver is 2 to 3V.We have to adjust An IR transmitter transmits IR waves. The waves having
these IR pair in such a way that when we place an obstacle in frequency in IR range. Wave propagation is line of sight.
front of this IR pair, IR receiver should be able to detect the Therefore an IR receiver is placed exactly opposite the IR
obstacle and receive the IR rays. When we give the power to it transmitter to receive the signal transmitted by transmitter. Thus
than the transmitted IR rays hit the object and reflect back to the an IR transceiver pair is used to detect any obstacle between it.
IR receiver. For the traffic system, we have to glow the LEDs The condition when the voltage at the IR receiver is below the
on the time basis. If the traffic density is high on any particular threshold level, an obstacle is said to be detected. When no
path then the more traffic path should have more time than the obstacle is there, then a known voltage will be detected at the
other path so it glows green LED of that particularly path and receiver end.
glows the red LEDs for remaining paths.
C. LED
IV COMPONENT DESCRIPTION
Here we are using light-emitting diode (LED) that is a two-lead
semiconductor light source that resembles a basic PN-junction
diode, except that an LED also emits the light. When an LEDs
anode lead has a voltage that is more positive than its cathode
lead by approximately like 0.6 to2.2 Volts, current often flows
and light is often emitted. On the other way, when an LEDs
anode lead has a voltage that is less positive than its cathode
lead by approximately 0.6 to2.2 Volts, current often does not
flow and light is often not emitted.
 IV. APPLICATIONS OF THE SYSTEM Camera, Sensors and Transducers Journal Vol. 94, Issue 7,
July 2008, pp.126-132
This project is mainly used to control the traffic in metropolitan
cities and it also used Infrared remote control. There is no need [2] Density based Traffic Control System (IJSRD/Vol.
of traffic inspector or police on the roads for guiding or 4/Issue 11/2017/151)
managing the traffic and thus it run smoothly. The work which
is done by traffic inspectors is now done by the microcontroller [3] http://www.electronicshub.org/density-based-traffic-
in the system with the help of sensors and the implemented signal-system-using-microcontroller/
program which is done in microcontroller. Due to which the
effectiveness of time management improves. It is mainly [4] https://www.worldwidejournals.com/international-journal-
implemented for safety purpose which reduces the accidents in of-scientific-research-
day to day life. Even if authorized car user is not aware about (IJSR)/file.php?val=May_2015_1430491051__86.pdf
the junction due to the project the IR sensors it starts detecting
and sends the signals to controller which will counts the
vehicle and start sending commands and act according to that.
It is used to clear traffic without any irregularities.

V. LIMITATIONS OF THE SYSTEM

The problem with the traffic system is that for every minute the
vehicles at the junction will be high and the traffic lights
suppose be changed to each side for some fixed time. Even
though there are no any vehicles at particular side, the traffic
signals will glow for given fixed time. Due to which it has a
time waste process. Due to this other side vehicles have to wait
for the time to complete the process. So to reduce the time
wastage, we can implement the system that controls the traffic
based on the heavy flow of vehicles at any particular side. In
this system, we can count the figure of vehicles at each lane at
the intersection and give the path to the specific side which has
heavy flow of vehicles and keep remaining stop position due to
which lots of time is consumed. If the IR sensor fails to detect
then the occurrence of signal via controller can miss the counts
which can seems to be a major traffic jam. We have to arrange
IR sensors in accurate manner otherwise they may not be able
to detect the traffic density. The IR sensors sometimes may
absorb normal light also. Due to which the traffic system works
in improper way. And the major limitations are the IR sensors
work only for fewer distances.

VI. CONCLUSION
Thus from above concept we can determine that using the
technique of density based traffic control lights we can save
a significant amount of time and also we can avoid excessive
traffic jams thus leading to even traffic flow. In practice
currently in India we are following time based traffic control
signals and we are suffering from heavy traffic jams all over
which in turn devours lot of time and fuel. We hope these
approaches will be implemented as soon as possible so that the
restrictions we are experiencing with present technique can be
overcome.

REFERENCE

[1] Amrita Rai and Govind Singh Patel, Multiple Traffic

Control Using Wireless Sensor and Density Measuring