FPGA-Based home automation system with Embedded-Linux open CV

Abstract

Nowadays, home automation has caught the focus of technology. It is the process of connecting and controlling home appliances automatically and/or remotely. Infirst part of this project, we designed and built an embedded controller on an FPGA to control a small home consisting of one chamber. The system automatically operates the door, the window, the lights, and the alarm. For the second part, we implemented a fire detection system using OpenCV on an Embedded-Linux platform using the same FPGA and a USB webcam. At the moment, both parts are separate and don't operate at the same time. The system uses the Intel DE10 FPGA board and the Qsys platform designer tool to implement both parts. One of the aims of this project is toevaluate the potentials of the newly acquiredDE10 FPGA board. Both parts used theQsysplatform designer to implement the on-chip hardware system inside the FPGA fabric.For the first part, controller software is written in C and executed on the NIOSII soft-core to control the small home. For the second part, embedded Linux is booted from an SD-Card plugged into the DE10. Then, a fire detection algorithm is implemented using OpenCV to capture live video from an attached USB webcam and apply a number of rules to detect the presence of fire. The first system part was successfully implemented using the Quartus Primeversion 16.1, on a DE10 board. Our prototype system includes a USB webcam for fire detection, controlling the opening/closing process of doors/windows, controlling lights and an alarm according to a gas LDRs and IR sensors.Finally, the prototype system worked as expected.