Controlling Mini Exhaust Fan through Android-Based Smartphone for IoT-Based Smart Home System

Abstract

In this work, we present a control system for a mini electrical fan. The aim of this work is to design a controller prototype for an electrical fan within the smart home system. The system consists of an STM32L100 microcontroller for controlling the electrical fan using pulse-width modulation (PWM), TIP 102 BJT transistor for ‘off,’ and ‘on’ control of the fan, and 1N4007 fly-back diode. The PWM is generated by the STM32L100 microcontroller to control the Fan’s speed softly (25%, 50%, 75%, and 0% - 100% of speed). In addition, the system is equipped with a ZigBee module to support wireless communication with the host, which is required to receive and process commands from the Android application used for the user interface. Moreover, with the Zigbee module, the fan device enables be integrated wirelessly with other end devices in a smart home environment through a network (e.g., Mesh topology). Based on the testing performed, the system can work as intended, it can be controlled easily using Android smartphone and its speed, with the currents of 43.1 mA (idle mode) and 145.1 mA (processing mode) powered by 12 VDC.