Digital Electronics

Traffic Light

Nouran Soliman
13101167
Abstract
This documentation is written to describe the solution to a traffic light problem. The problem
statement requires to switch between 2 sets of traffic lights at a cross providing the features of
instant switching by the officer and variable input time for the lights.
The solution circuit is designed using a 2-bit asynchronous counter implemented with 2 D flip-
flops to switch between the traffic lights. For clock generation, an astable circuit is used. Pulse
generation is also done using 2 monostable circuits to instantly switch the lights. The total cost of
the project is 36.5 Egyptian Pounds.
The report includes an analysis of different solutions, and a detailed description of the design,
transistor-level implementation, operation and cost of the project.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 2
2. Problem Statement ................................................................................................................... 2
3. Literature Review .................................................................................................................... 3
3.1 Using Comparator, Full adder and Counter ..................................................................... 3
3.2 Using 555 timer ................................................................................................................ 3
3.3 Using Counter .................................................................................................................. 4
4. Circuit Block Diagram............................................................................................................. 5
5. Transistor-Level Implementation ............................................................................................ 7
5.1 OR Gate ............................................................................................................................ 7
5.2 AND Gate ......................................................................................................................... 8
5.3 D Flip-flop ........................................................................................................................ 9
5.4 Clock generator .............................................................................................................. 14
5.5 Pulse generator ............................................................................................................... 16
6. System Integration ................................................................................................................. 17
7. Practical Implementation ....................................................................................................... 19
8. Cost Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 21
9. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 21
10. Future Work ....................................................................................................................... 21
11. References .......................................................................................................................... 21
12. Appendix ............................................................................................................................ 22
Nomenclature
LED – Light Emitting Diode
RTL – Resistor-to-Transistor Logic
TTL – Transistor-to-Transistor Logic
DIP – Dual In-line Package

1. Introduction
Traffic lights, also known as traffic signals, stop lights, traffic lamps, stop-and-go lights, robots or
semaphore, are signaling devices positioned at road or junction intersections, pedestrian crossings,
and other locations to control competing flows of traffic.
Traffic lights have been installed in most cities around the world to control the flow of traffic.
They assign the right of way to road users by the use of lights in standard colors (Red - Amber -
Green), using a universal color code (and a precise sequence, for those who are color blind). They
are used at busy intersections to more evenly apportion delay to the various users.
The most common traffic lights consist of a set of three lights: red, yellow (officially amber), and
green. When illuminated, the red light indicates for vehicles facing the light to stop; the amber
indicates caution, either because lights are about to turn green or because lights are about to turn
red; and the green light to proceed, if it is safe to do so.
There are many variations in the use and legislation of traffic lights, depending on the customs of
a country and the special needs of a particular intersection. There may, for example, be special
lights for pedestrians, bicycles, buses, trams, etc.; light sequences may differ; and there may be
special rules, or sets of lights, for traffic turning in a particular direction. Complex intersections
may use any combination of these.
The normal function of traffic lights requires a slightly more control and coordination to ensure
that traffic moves as smoothly and safely as possible and that pedestrians are protected when they
cross the roads. A variety of different control systems are used to accomplish this, ranging from
simple clockwork mechanisms to sophisticated computerized control and coordination systems
that self-adjust to minimize delay to people using the road.

2. Problem Statement
The problem statement requires designing and building a Digital Traffic Light controller in
transistor logic. The traffic of cars is to be adjusted at a crossing with two sets of colored lights
(red, amber and green) in order to arrange for different timings for each of the flow directions and
the waiting period. The circuit must be adjustable in time. In addition, a direct interfere of the
officer is important in the cases of emergencies in order to alter the direction of the traffic. In
addition, pedestrian crossing access must be included.
3. Literature Review
Before implementing a certain solution, several comparisons were made to evaluate the
functionality, simplicity and cost of each design in order to pick a good compromise.
3.1 Using Comparator, Full adder and
Counter DIP switch
Fig.1 shows the block diagram of the circuit.
This circuit was intended to take the input
time for each LED from a DIP switch. This
time is added to the time of all the LEDs
operated before this LED and is input to a
comparator. The other input of the Counter Comparator
comparator is taken from a counter. When
the counter reaches the required time the
suitable LED is illuminated. Implementing
this circuit is inconvenient as it is very huge
and will cost a lot. Fig. 1: Circuit of full adder and comparator

3.2 Using 555 timer

Fig. 2: Circuit of 555 timer

Both 555's are wired as oscillators in astable mode (Fig.2) and will oscillate all the time when they
are turned on. But the second 555 is not turned on all the time. The first 555 turns on and the 100u
is not charged. This makes output pin 3 HIGH and the red LED is not illuminated. However the
output feeds the second 555 and it turns on.
Output pin 3 of the second 555 turns on the green LED and the second 100u charges to 2/3 rail
voltage and causes the 555 to change states. The green LED goes off and the orange LED turns
on. The second 100u starts to discharge, but the first 100u is charging via a 100k and after the
orange LED has been on for a short period of time, the first 555 changes state and pin 3 goes LOW.
This turns on the red LED and turns off the second 555.
The first 100u starts to discharge via the 100k and eventually it changes state to start the cycle
again. The problem of this circuit is that the timing depends on the long cycle-time of the first 555
due to the 100k and the short cycle due to the 47k on the second 555. Therefore, the time of the
green and amber lights must be equal to the red one.
COMPONENTS USED:
1. Two 555 IC.
2. Two 100uF cap.
3. One 100K resistance.
4. One 47K resistance.
5. One 470ohm resistance.
6. Two 220ohm resistance.
7. One red LED.
8. One orange LED.
9. One green LED.
10. One 6-12V power Supply.
This circuit is quite simple and cheap but does not fulfill the function required.
3.3 Using Counter

Fig. 3: Circuit using D flip-flop counter

The solution described through this documentation is based on this circuit in Fig.3. This circuit
uses a 2-bit asynchronous counter implemented using 2 D Flip-Flops and an AND gate. The D
flip-flops generate numbers from 0 to 3 in binary. These numbers are used to satisfy the 4 cases
present in the problem. The 4 cases are: Red, Red and Yellow, Green, and then Yellow (Fig.4).
The red LED should illuminate in case of 00, the green LED in case of 10 and the yellow LED in
case of 01 or 11.
Let the output of flip-flop 1 = Q1 and output of flip-flop 2 = Q2.
∴ Red = Q2’, Yellow = Q1, and Green = Q1’Q2.
This illuminates the LEDs in correct order for a certain time duration depending on the clock fed
to flip-flop 1.
Compared to the other solutions, this circuit has relatively moderate complexity and cost, and can
be easily modified to fulfill all the requirements of the problem statement.

Fig. 4: Stages of D flip-flop circuit

4. Circuit Block Diagram

Fig. 5: Solution block diagram

Fig.5 shows the full block diagram of the circuit after doing some improvements to fulfill all of
the requirements. The circuit consists of 3 OR gates, 2 AND gates, 2 D flip-flops, 1 clock generator
and 2 pulse generators. The LEDs sequence operates as explained in the previous section. (Fig.6)

Fig. 6: Circuit stages

In order for the officer to be able to instantly switch

the traffic light, a switch is used to trigger a pulse
generator, which produces 1 pulse with the duration
required to turn-on the LED after which the cycles
resumes its normal operation. If the switch of the Red
LED is pressed, it is required that both flip-flops
output 0 to light up the Red LED (Fig.7). However, if
the switch of the Green LED is pressed, flip-flop 1 is
required to output 0 and flip-flop 2 is required to
output 1 to light up the Green LED (Fig.8). Therefore, Fig. 7: Red Interrupt
the set of flip-flop 1 is always grounded, the reset of
flip-flop 1 is connected to the OR-ing of both pulses, the set of flip-flop 2 is connected to the pulse
responsible for the Green LED and the reset of flip-flop 2 is connected to the pulse responsible for
the Red LED. If both switches are pressed at the same time, the set and reset of flip-flop 2 will
have an input of 1. To avoid this situation, the set of the flip-flop is connected to an AND gate of
inputs: Green LED pulse and inversion of Red LED pulse. This allows the Red LED to take over,
however, it is illogical to operate the Red and Green
LEDs at the same time. Any of the generated pulses
will also disable the clock of the flip-flop through 2
OR gates so that the flip-flop keeps its last state after
setting and resetting for the duration of the pulse. The
first OR gate is used so that if any of the switches is
pressed, the output is 1. The output of the first OR is
then OR-ed with the main clock fed to the circuit. This
ensures that the clock is disabled if any of the switches
is pumped. This is done for one set of traffic lights and Fig. 8: Green Interrupt
the second set is connected in an opposite order.

5. Transistor-Level Implementation
5.1 OR Gate

Fig. 9: RTL OR gate

At first, the OR gate was implemented using RTL. If any or both of the inputs
are 0, the output is 0. If both inputs are 1, the output is 1. This matches the truth
table of the OR gate (Fig.9).
This circuit works well in the simulation, however, during the practical
implementation of the circuit, the RTL OR gate caused problems to the circuit
and was switched in to TTL logic (Fig.10).
Fig. 10: TTL OR gate
5.2 AND Gate

Fig. 11: RTL AND gate

At first, the AND gate was designed using RTL (Fig.11). However, when any of the inputs is 0,
the diode conducts current to the component connected before the AND gate. This caused
problems when implemented on Proteus simulator. Consequently, the AND gate is implemented
using TTL. The output of the AND gate is 1 when both inputs are 1 and 0 otherwise (Fig.12). Only
when both inputs of the transistors are 1, the output at the collector is approximately 2*VCE saturation
(low level output). The third transistor is used to invert this output to high level which matches the
truth table of the AND gate.

Fig. 12: TTL AND gate

Fig. 13: Full circuit with gates

5.3 D Flip-flop
The D flip-flop block diagram is shown in Fig.14. As long as the clock input is
low, changes at the D input make no difference to the outputs. Provided that the
CK input is high (at logic 1), then whichever logic state is at D will appear at
output Q. The set forces the output to 1 and the reset forces the output to 0.
(Fig.15, 16, 17 and 18)
Fig. 14: D flip-flop

Fig. 15: D flip-flip (D=0)

Fig. 16: D flip-flop (D=1)

 Fig. 17: D flip-flop (reset)

Fig. 18: D flip-flop (set)

The clock pulse applied to the flip-flop is reduced to a very narrow positive going clock pulse of
only about 45ns duration, by using an AND gate and
applying the clock pulse directly to input ‘a’ but
delaying its arrival at input ‘b’ by passing it through 3
inverters (Fig.19). This inverts the pulse and also delays
it by three propagation delays. The AND gate therefore
produces logic 1 at its output only for the 45ns when
both ‘a’ and ‘b’ are at logic 1 after the rising edge of the
clock pulse.
During the simulation of the flip-flop, three NOTs were
not enough to produce a pulse that could drive the Fig. 19: pulse delay of D flip-flop

following gates. To solve this solution, 3 options were

proposed: increase the number of NOTs, use an RC circuit to delay the signal followed by a
Schmitt trigger to adjust the shape of the signal to a sharp square wave (Fig.20), or AND a
monostable multivibrator with the input of the NOT. The first solution has proven to be simpler
and costs less money, therefore, 5 NOTs are used instead of three (Fig.21).

Fig. 20: D flip-flop with Schmitt trigger

Fig. 21: D flip-flop with 5 NOTs

The simulation of the NAND gate was done first before integrating the whole flip-flop (Fig.22).

Fig. 22: NAND gate

The converted flip-flop is shown in Fig.23, 24, 25 and 26 with all of its cases.

Fig. 23: D flip-flop with transistors (D=0)

Fig. 24: D flip-flop with transistors (D=1)

Fig. 25: D flip-flop with transistors (reset)

 Fig. 26: D flip-flop with transistors (set)

5.4 Clock generator

Initially, the clock generator was implemented using 555 in
astable mode. Fig.27 shows the astable connection. In
the astable mode, the circuit will keep re-triggering itself,
resulting in a pulse train. In this case, the capacitor charges
and discharges between 1/3 VCC and 2/3 VCC. The 555's
output is high while charging, and low while discharging
(Fig.28). The capacitor charges and discharge at different
rate—it has to charge through RA and RB, but it only
discharges through RB. Thus, the length of the output's
highs and lows can be changed by adjusting these resistors.
This is used to vary the time of the traffic lights through a Fig. 27: Astable connection of 555 timer

variable resistance.
The length of the high output is equal to:

The length of the low output is equal to:

Fig. 28: Output graph
Fig.29 shows the Proteus simulation of the astable multivibrator using 555 timer.

Fig. 29: Proteus simulation of astable

The transistor-level simulation of the astable multivibrator (Fig.30) does not work on the
simulation programs because both transistors start at the same time. The astable multivibrator is
directly implemented on a bred board.

Fig. 30: Astable connection with transistors

5.5 Pulse generator
This circuit is implemented using 555 timer in the
monostable mode to generate a pulse when it receives a
trigger. Connections for the 555 timer in monostable
mode is shown in Fig.31.
The circuit operates as follows:

1. In this circuit's initial condition, the

capacitor C is held discharged through
the discharge pin, which is grounded through
the flip-flop in the timer. The threshold voltage Fig. 31: Monostable connection
is equal to the voltage across the capacitor.
2. When the trigger pin receives a negative trigger
pulse less than 1/3 VCC, the flip-flop sets
the output to high and disconnects
the discharge pin from the ground. This allows
the capacitor to charge until the voltage across
it reaches 2/3 VCC, which takes about t=1.1RAC
seconds.
3. When the threshold voltage reaches 2/3 VCC, the
flip-flop resets, connecting discharge to the
ground and setting output to low. It is now back Fig. 32: Monostable output
in the initial state, and awaits another trigger
pulse. (Fig.32)
By selecting the resistor and capacitor, the length of the output pulse can be controlled. If the
trigger receives a signal while the output is still high, there is no effect. This feature is used to vary
the time of the traffic lights after switching for emergency. Fig.33 shows the simulation of the
monostable circuit on Proteus.

Fig. 33: Monostable on proteus

6. System Integration
6.1 Transistors biasing
During the simulation process, several values of transistor biasing resistances were tried. At first,
4.7KOhm resistances were used to bias the collector and base of each transistor. However, when
several transistors were connected in a train, these values of resistances caused a decay in the signal
and the collector of the transistor couldn’t operate the following one. Accordingly, the value of
resistance of output collector must be smaller than the value of resistance of the input base. Values
of 4.7KOhm and 100KOhm are picked for the collectors and bases respectively. These values have
proven to be well-functioning and fixed the problem.
6.2 Signal drop problems
After testing each module separately, the circuit was integrated all together. This produced many
errors due to the effect of each circuit on the next one. This occurred when the output of a transistor
braches in to many inputs or when the signal decays in a stage such as: the output of the monostable
555 timer responsible for the Red light, and the 3-input NAND gate of the Q’ which feeds back
the input D. To avoid this problem, 2 transistors were placed between the output and the inputs to
amplify the signal without inverting it.

Fig. 34: full system red ON

Fig. 35: full system red & yellow ON

Fig. 36: full system green ON

 Fig. 37: full system yellow ON

7. Practical Implementation
After successfully integrating the circuit all together using Proteus simulator, a real prototype was
connected on a bred board. Fig.38 shows the bred board in its final stage. A rectifier bridge is
connected using 4 silicon diodes to ensure power connection safety. A 5V adapter is used to power
up the circuit. The circuit is built using npn 2N2222 transistor due to its availability and low cost.
Resistors of values 100KΩ and 4.7KΩ are used to bias each transistor’s base and collector
respectively. Resistances of 1KΩ or 270Ω are used to limit the current through the LEDs. For the
astable multivibrator, a capacitor of 1uF and 2 resistances of values 1MΩ are used to produce a
high time of 1.4s and low time of 0.7s. For the monostable multivibrator, a capacitor of 1uF and a
resistance of 1.5MΩ are used to produce a pulse width of 1.7s. Therefore, a variable resistance in
the range of Mega Ohms is required for each multivibrator (astable and monostable) to produce a
noticeable time duration for testing.
 Fig. 38: practical prototype

A last-minute modification is done so that the traffic lights of the 2 sets switch more realistically.
It is required that when:
 Red light of first is on, green light of second is on.
 Red and yellow lights of first are on, yellow light of second is on.
 Green light of first is on, red light of second is on.
 Yellow light of first is on, red and yellow lights of second are on.
To fulfill these conditions, the red LED of the second set is connected to the result of OR-ing of
its original input and the yellow case, and the green LED is connected to the result of AND-ing of
its original input and inverted yellow. The sequence of switching is shown in the Appendix.
The new expressions for the second traffic light set are:
Let the output of flip-flop 1 = Q1 and output of flip-flop 2 = Q2.
∴ Red2 = Q2.Q1’+Q2 = Q2, Yellow2 = Q1, and Green = Q1’Q2’.
8. Cost Analysis
The following table includes the cost of all the components used.
Component Name Price/Item (LE) Quantity Total Price (LE)
2N2222 Transistor 0.25 60 15
LEDs 0.25 6 3
Push buttons 0.5 3 1.5
555 Timer 2 3 6
Diodes 0.1 10 1
Resistances (4.7K, 100K, 10K, 1K) 0.1 90 9
Capacitors (1u, 10n, 100n) 0.1 10 1
Total Price (LE) 36.5
If the circuit is implemented using ready-made ICs, the following components are used:
 One 7408 (for AND gates)
 One 7432 (for OR gates)
 One 7474 (for D flip-flops)
 Three 555 timers (for clock and pulse generation)
The total estimated cost of this ready-made circuit is around 12 Egyptian pounds, which is much
cheaper than the transistor-level implementation solution.

9. Conclusion
This report presented a simple solution for a traffic light system with a low cost and good
functionality.

10. Future Work

In this circuit, the input time duration of all the LEDs is varied by a single variable resistance, so,
all the LEDs must have equal switching times unless the officer presses the interrupt button for a
certain color. As a future work, it is intended to modify the circuit to enable the variation of the
ON-duration of each LED separately.

11. References
[1] http://myelectronicshub.blogspot.com.eg/2014/07/making-traffic-lights-using-555-ic.html
[2] http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/index.php/555_Timer
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_(electronics)
[4] http://www.learnabout-electronics.org/Digital/dig53.php
[5] http://www.electricaltechnology.org/2014/10/traffic-light-control-electronic-project.html
[6] http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/circuits/transistor/circuit-configurations.php
12. Appendix

First: Red on, Second: Green on

First: Red and yellow on, Second: Yellow on

First: Green on, Second: Red on

First: Yellow on, Second: Red and yellow