Solar powered LED street lighting based on vehicle motion detection for sustainable energy utilization

A large amount of energy can be saved by developing a smart street lighting system which essentially assuage the problem of power consumption and reduction of carbon footprint. The conventional process involves higher energy consumption because of longer and unnecessary operating hours of the street lights based on night hours. However, by controlling the intensity of the street lights based on the movement of traffic in the street saves a great deal of energy. In this research, a smart system for operating the street lights is developed for controlling brightness of the light bulb based on the motion of the movement of the vehicle. In this research, a prototype for smart street light system is developed based on the solar PV panel, battery, light dependent resistor (LDR), passive infrared sensors (PIR) and battery charge controller. Moreover, the control system is designed based on Arduino UNO as the microcontroller which provide the necessary pulse width modulated signal to control the light intensity. The research has been conducted based on four different simulation scenarios where the operating time and traffic condition is varied. In this study, the developed smart street lighting system is able to save up to 50% of energy than the conventional system per day during light traffic condition.