construction

Live Home Security System niraj sa

& Sani th
hay
eo

Sandip Nair

P
resented here is a simple and
inexpensive PC-based home
security system. It uses a simple
interfacing circuitry, and is developed
using Perl and Shell scripts and tested
on Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) environment.
The computer should be connected
to the Internet, webcam, speaker and
microphone. The door bell switch in
the interfacing circuit activates the
webcam, speaker and microphone.
Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of
live home security system. The web-
cam, speaker and microphone are fixed Fig. 1: Block diagram of live home security system
near the front door at a particular ori-
entation for optimal recording. When
a visitor rings the bell by pressing the
door bell switch, his image is captured
by the webcam. The speaker plays an
audio asking the name of the visitor.
The visitor’s voice (name) is recorded
in the PC through the microphone. The
captured image and audio files are sent
to the e-mail ID of the house owner.
The house owner can receive and ac-
cess these files in his smartphone with
inbuilt e-mail client within seconds
from anywhere.
Apart from Ubuntu operating sys-
tem, you need the following software
to be installed in your PC: Fig. 2: Circuit of live home security system
MPlayer. To play the audio.
Mplayer is a free and Open Source shortcut from the command line in it connects the USB webcam with the
media player. It is available for all ma- Linux for Thunderbird (e-mail client). PC for 10 seconds—set as per the time
jor operating systems, including Linux. xdotool allows programmers to emu- constant of the monostable multivibra-
arecord. To record the audio. late keystrokes and mouse actions. tor (t=1.1×R2×C1). The loop.pl code
arecord is a command-line sound file Thunderbird. To send an e-mail to given at the end of this article runs
recorder for the ALSA soundcard the recipient’s e-mail ID. continuously in the PC to check wheth-
driver. It supports several file formats er the webcam is connected or not.
and multiple sound cards with multi- Project description Before running the application
ple devices. The interfacing circuitry is shown in program, you need to execute ‘lsusb’
Streamer. To capture the image. Fig. 2. It is built around a 555 timer command, which lists out the number
Streamer is a versatile program that al- configured in monostable mode. The of USB devices connected to your PC.
lows capture from a webcam or video circuit does not require external power In the list, you can find the webcam de-
device using only the command line supply. It is directly driven by the 5V vice name (Logitech in this case). Each
in Linux. supply received from the USB of the USB device connected to a computer
xdotool. To control the keyboard user’s PC. When the timer is activated, will have a vendor ID and a product ID

122 February 2012 | Electronics For You www.efymag.com


which distin-
guish it from
other devices.
The vendor
ID (Logitech)
has to be men-
tioned in the
code. Now
you can run
the loop.pl
program.
Loop.pl.
This is a Perl
script that
runs continu-
ously to check
whether the
webcam is
connected or
Fig. 3: Flow-chart of the
not. Values for
program ‘sleep’ com-
mand in the
code can be changed to achieve an
optimal performance. Thunderbird has
to be installed and configured before
running this program. The flow-chart
of the program is shown in Fig. 3.
When the visitor rings the door
bell by pressing switch S1, it triggers
the monostable circuit and the web-
cam gets connected to the system.
The program control moves inside the
if($count2==1) condition in the loop.pl
code. Then it starts executing the fol-
lowing programs sequentially:
Webcam.pl. It is a Perl script which
acquires the image from the webcam
using Streamer tool. The image is
stored in your system. The path of
Parts List
Semiconductors:
IC1 - 555 timer
T1 - 2N3904 npn transistor
T2 - BC548 npn transistor
D1 - 1N4007 diode
LED1 - 5mm light-emitting diode
Resistors (all ¼-watt, ±5% carbon):
R1, R3, R4 - 1-kilo-ohm
R2 - 91-kilo-ohm
Capacitors:
C1 - 100µF, 16V electrolytic
C2 - 0.01µF ceramic
Miscellaneous:
RL1 - 5V, 1C/O relay
- USB webcam (Logitech/
Quantum)
- USB cable
- Door bell pushbutton switch
www.efymag.com
construction
the image acquired has to be speci-
fied in the options of Streamer tool as
“streamer –o /path/of/the/image”
The Streamer can be installed from
the Internet by using the following
command:
sudo apt-get install streamer
Streamer reads audio and video
data from ‘/dev/video0’ and ‘/dev/
dsp’ locations. Then it writes the data
to the disk. Various output formats are
supported. The following instruction in
the code captures the image from the
webcam and stores it in your PC:
sudo streamer -c /dev/video1 -b 16 -o
/home/efyindia/Documents/photos/
image_$date.jpeg
where ‘-c’ defines the device driver and
‘-o’ defines the file destination.
With ‘streamer –h’ executed in the
console, the details of Streamer com-
mand can be viewed on the PC’s screen.
Listen.pl. This Perl script uses
MPlayer tool to play the audio mes-
sage “Please, may I know your name”
to the visitor.
Record.pl. This code records the
audio from the visitor using arecord
tool. The destination for the audio
acquired has to be specified in the
options of arecord tool as explained
below:
sudo arecord -f CD -d 5 -D hw:0,0 /
home/efyindia/Documents/audios/
audio_$date.wav
where ‘-f’ is the format, ‘-d’ duration of
five seconds, ‘-D’ device name and ‘/
home/efyindia/Documents/audios/
audio_$date.wav’ destination of the
file.
The arecord can be installed from
the Internet by using the following
command:
sudo apt-get install arecord
arecord is a command-line sound
file recorder for the ALSA soundcard
driver. It supports several file formats
and multiple soundcards with multiple
devices.
With ‘arecord –h’ executed in the
console, more details of arecord com-
mand can be viewed on the screen.
Mail_pic.sh. It is a Shell script
which sends an e-mail to the house
owner’s e-mail ID using Thunderbird
Electronics For You | February 2012 123
 construction
Fig. 4: An actual-size, single-side PCB for the live home security system
Fig. 5: Component layout for the PCB
tool with the acquired image file as
an attachment. The owner’s e-mail
ID can be updated in this file using
“xdotool type ‘email_id@gmail.com’;”
command.
The xdotool can be installed from
the Internet by using the following
command:
sudo apt-get install xdotool
This tool lets you simulate key-
board input and mouse activity, move
and resize windows, etc. It uses X11’s
XTEST extension and other Xlib func-
tions. Additionally, you can modify
window properties. You can use
xdotool to switch desktops, move win-
dows between desktops, and change
the number of desktops.
Two commands of Xdotool are
explained below:
Xdotool type “ABE”—Types ABE text
Xdotool key tab—Gives tab keystroke
With ‘xdotool –h’ executed in the
console, the details of xdotool com-
mand can be viewed.
Mail_audio.sh. This Shell script
sends an e-mail to another e-mail ID
using Thunderbird tool with the re-
corded audio file as attachment.
An actual-size, single-side PCB lay-
out for the live home security system
is shown in Fig. 4 and its component
layout in Fig. 5.
EFY note. The source codes of this
article are available on www.efymag.
com website.
The author is a student of M.Tech in mechatronics
& robotics

Source Codes
loop.pl -> system “./mail_audio. done < date.txt
#!/usr/bin/perl sh”; thunderbird -compose “attachment=file:///
use strict; } home/efyindia/Documents/photos/
use warnings; } image_$date.jpeg”&
my $i=0; sleep 5;
while($i == 0) webcam.pl -> xdotool type ‘email_id@gmail.com’;
{ #!/usr/bin/perl sleep 1;
system “lsusb |sudo tee usblist.txt”; use strict; xdotool key Tab;
open FILE, “usblist.txt” or die $!; use warnings; sleep 1;
my $line; open FILE, “date.txt” or die $!; xdotool type ‘somebody is at the door’;
my $count; my $date = <FILE>; sleep 1;
my $count2=0; chop($date); xdotool key Tab;
open FILE, “usblist.txt” or die $!; print “\nhi\n$date”; sleep 1;
while ($line = <FILE>) system (“sudo streamer -c /dev/video1 -b xdotool type ‘this is the picture’;
{ 16 -o /home/efyindia/Documents/photos/ sleep 1;
my @word = split(/ /, image_$date.jpeg”); xdotool key Ctrl+Return;
$line); close FILE;
$ c o u n t = mail_audio.sh ->
grep(/^Logitech/, @word); listen.pl -> #!/bin/bash -x
if($count==1) #!/usr/bin/perl while read myline
{ $ c o u n t 2 = 1 ; } use strict; do
use warnings; echo $myline
} system (“sudo mplayer attention.wav”); date=$myline
close FILE; done < date.txt
if ($count2 ==1) record.pl -> thunderbird -compose “attachment=file:///
{ #!/usr/bin/perl home/efyindia/Documents/audios/
my $date = localtime use strict; audio_$date.wav”&
time; use warnings; sleep 5;
my @date2 = split(/ open FILE, “date.txt” or die $!; xdotool type ‘email_id@gmail.com’;
/, $date); my $date = <FILE>; sleep 1;
$date = “$date2[4]_$d chop($date); xdotool key Tab;
ate2[0]_$date2[1]_$date2[3]_$date2[5]”; system (“sudo arecord -f CD -d 5 -D sleep 1;
system “echo $date | hw:0,0 /home/efyindia/Documents/audios/ xdotool type ‘somebody is at the door’;
sudo tee date.txt”; audio_$date.wav”); sleep 1;
system “./webcam.pl”; xdotool key Tab;
system “./listen.pl”; mail_pic.sh -> sleep 1;
system “./record.pl”; #!/bin/bash -x xdotool type ‘this is the audio’;
sleep 10; while read myline sleep 1;
system “./mail_pic. do xdotool key Ctrl+Return;
sh”; echo $myline 
sleep 20; date=$myline

124 February 2012 | Electronics For You www.efymag.com