Traffic Light Controller Design Report: 1201TRA London College UCK2

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201
TRAFFIC LIGHT
CONTROLLER Engineering
Design
Report
Designing a Product That Meets
Customer RequirementsArduino based traffic light controller is designed to
control 4-way traffic. This report highlights the
designing of a traffic control system according to
client’s requirements and industrial design
standards.
The London
CollegeUCK

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
LO1 Forecasting a Design Solution.................................................................................................5
Design Specification and Erection Phases...................................................................................5
Influence of Stakeholder’s Design Brief in Preparation of Design Specifications.....................5
Design Preparation via Gantt Chart.............................................................................................6
Design Preparation via Planning Techniques and Critical Path..................................................6
Comparing Proposed Design Specifications to Industrial Standards..........................................7
LO2 Possible Technical Solutions to Discover Student Prepared Design Specs...........................9
Modelling and Prototyping Initial Design Solutions...................................................................9
Prototype1: Arduino 3 Traffic Lights Controller.....................................................................9
Prototype2: Arduino Traffic Light Controller for Pedestrian Overpass..................................9
Prototype3: Arduino Traffic Light Controller with Junction................................................10
Evaluating Initial Design Solutions...........................................................................................10
Appropriate Software/ Hardware...............................................................................................10
Possible Improvements in Initial Technical Designs Presenting Case for Final Choice of
Selection....................................................................................................................................11
LO3 Engineering Industry Standard Design Prospects................................................................12
Final Design...............................................................................................................................12
Working of Final Design Setup.............................................................................................12
Limitations Estimate..................................................................................................................13
Role of Design Specifications in Designing a Final Choice......................................................13
Compliance, Safety, and Risk Management Issues...................................................................14
Effectiveness of Final Design....................................................................................................15
LO4 Design Presentation and Customer’s Feedback Suggesting Further Improvements............16

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Design Presentation...................................................................................................................16
Possible Communication Strategies..........................................................................................17
Effectiveness of Design Presentation........................................................................................18
Clients Feedback and Potential Improvements..........................................................................18
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................19
References......................................................................................................................................20
Appendix I: Schematics.................................................................................................................21
Appendix II: 3D Model to Implement the TLC System................................................................22
Appendix III: Arduino Code for TLC system...............................................................................23
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Gantt Chart showing timeline of whole design process to be carried out........................5
Figure 2: Critical path separating possible planning techniques from a critical planning path.......6
Figure 3: Comparing Design Specs With Industrial Standards.......................................................7
Figure 4: Schematics1......................................................................................................................7
Figure 5: Schematics2......................................................................................................................8
Figure 6: Schematics 3.....................................................................................................................8
Figure 7: Evaluating Initial Prototypes............................................................................................9
Figure 8: Traffic Light Logic Block Diagram...............................................................................10
Figure 9: Risk, Safety, and Compliance Issues.............................................................................12
Figure 10: Working of Main and Side lamps along with four junctions.......................................12
Figure 11: Proteus Simulation of Final Design Solution...............................................................13
Figure 12: Final Design Elements.................................................................................................14
Figure 13: (a) breadboard testing (b) Final Prototyping................15
Figure 14: Effectiveness Evaluation of Design Presentation........................................................16
List of Tables
Table 1: Role of Specification in Carrying out Design Process....................................................11
Table 2: Questionnaire and Feedback of Client............................................................................16

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Introduction
Traffic light controller is used to control the traffic on busy highways and intersecting roads like
4-way town roads. This report demonstrates the different designing techniques used to design
Arduino traffic light controller. The client requires microcontroller based simple traffic light
controller with less complexity in design and operation. By observing the traffic light system’s
behaviour already integrated into towns, we found out some simple solutions and designed
concerned product using Arduino microcontroller.

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LO1 Forecasting a Design Solution
Design Specification and Erection Phases
Pondering upon client’s requirements, the design should include a microcontroller to control
traffic lights, it should also be cost-effective and easy-to-operate. A the client doesn’t want
complexity in design so we prepared design specifications accordingly. Following are some
standard design requirements of the traffic light control system;
 Must control 4-way traffic of a busy town.
 Three standard traffic lights green, yellow, and red.
 Microcontroller based.
 Greenlight must be on a short time after yellow light.
 The time gap between red and green lights must be high.
Arduino based traffic light control system acquires following erection phases to go through;
 Initial testing will be done through Proteus simulator.
 Write Arduino code according to design requirements.
 Make a model of 4-way traffic system and implement Arduino and traffic lights on it.
Influence of Stakeholder’s Design Brief in Preparation of Design Specifications
Stakeholder’s requirements greatly influence the design process of which design specifications’
is the groundwork. The client required three features to be assimilated in product design includes
microcontroller based, easy-to-operate, cost-effective. Chart below shows how much customer’s
requirements influenced the preparation of design specifications.
C u s t o m e r ' s R e q u i r e m e n t s
4.3
2.4
2
Influence Graph
Requirement1 Requirement2 Requirement3
Chart 1: Influence of Stakeholder’s Requirements

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Design Preparation via Gantt Chart
Gantt chart plays a vital role in the planning of any project as it highlights each activity and how
it will evolve over time. Percentage completion of each task is being shown to let our client feel
his project is on the top of our practicable roadmap.
Figure 1: Gantt Chart showing the timeline of the whole design process to be carried out
Design Preparation via Planning Techniques and Critical Path
The critical path provides a resource utilization algorithm for planning a set of tasks. It’s
important to carry out critical path analysis to find the best way in which the design process can
be carried out. Blue line path shows the critical path with time estimated for each task. The black
line shows the other possible planning techniques towards the fully designed product.

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Figure 2: Critical path separating possible planning techniques from a critical planning path
Comparing Proposed Design Specifications to Industrial Standards
Industrial traffic management systems support the following features;
Feature1. Controlling several traffic light towers with one controller; usually four.
Feature2. Controlling and monitoring of other traffic light controller objects as well.
Feature3. React to equipment failures and reconnect after failure’s mitigation.
Feature4. Maintain work of 3 traffic lights (G, Y, R), 4 traffic lights (G, Y, R1, R2),
pedestrian traffic lights (2 lamps), arrows showing traffic signals, 4 tram traffic lights (G,
Y, R1, R2).
Comparing our design specification with these industrial standards allows us to make a
comparison graph showing the relevance of our specifications with these standards. Refer to the
following graph; (Liu et al, 2018).
Critical Path
Possible Planning Techniques

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F e a t u r e 1 F e a t u r e 2 F e a t u r e 3 F e a t u r e 4
4.3
2.5
3.5
4.5
2.4
4.4
1.8
2.8
2
2
3
5
Co mp a r i n g Desi g n S p ec s W i t h
In d u st r i a l S t a n d a r d s
4-way Traffic Controller 3 Traffic Light Lamps
Microcontroller
Figure 3: Comparing Design Specs With Industrial Standards

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LO2 Possible Technical Solutions to Discover Student Prepared
Design Specs
Modelling and Prototyping Initial Design Solutions
Prototyping before final design helps get better results and mitigates design weaknesses. We
followed the same strategy and model some designs before starting the final design. It cost some
components and failures lead us towards better production. Following are some tested designs;
Prototype1: Arduino 3 Traffic Lights Controller
Initially, traffic light control system was made only for 3 lights; green, red, and yellow. Each
LED is connected to Arduino through 220Ω resistor on digital pins (2, 3, 4). The main part of
system design when using Arduino is how to code it. Arduino has its own Arduino IDE compiler
and it uses C++ language to be coded. We made its software algorithm in a way that red LED
turns off after 5 seconds and yellow turn on afterwards, yellow turns off after 3 seconds and
green turns on, making four steps shown below;
Figure 4: Traffic Lights working diagram and Schematics1
Prototype2: Arduino Traffic Light Controller for Pedestrian Overpass
Here we change the system to make it a manual switch on-off using pushbutton. This can help
pedestrians delay the lights whenever they needed. This push button is also being coded in
Arduino to give a delay of 15 seconds. The circuit is shown in the figure below;
Figure 5: Schematics2

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Prototype3: Arduino Traffic Light Controller with Junction
Next, we were not satisfied by the only one traffic light tower, hence decided to add a junction
and one more traffic light system to be controlled from one microcontroller as per industrial
standards. Circuit for the junction is being shown below;
Figure 6: Schematics 3
Evaluating Initial Design Solutions
Initial modelling and prototyping help us getting closer to our final design. There were no such
limitations needs to be replaced but improvements although. After going through all the coding
and breadboard testing, our team evaluated each of the designs above on the scale of industrial
design standards. This may lead the way towards a fully compliant designed system with the
closest possible approach towards industrial TLC systems. Following graph shows the
percentage contribution of initial designs in following the design specifications and client
requirements.
P r o t o t y p e 1
P r o t o t y p e 2
P r o t o t y p e 3
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Durability
Industrial
Standard
Efficiency
Software
Performance
Figure 7: Evaluating Initial Prototypes
Appropriate Software/ Hardware
Evaluating initial designs performance of each design parameter was being observed by our
team. Following software hardware standards were being finalized;
 Software for Arduino coding: Arduino IDE
 Software for Modelling and Simulation: Proteus
 Hardware: Arduino, PCB, AutoCAD (3D Traffic Light Control System)

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Possible Improvements in Initial Technical Designs Presenting Case for Final
Choice of Selection
 The time delay between lights was not practically implementable suggesting
improvements for the four-way system to have longer delays.
 Also in the 4-way system, traffic light tower for the main and backside needed to have
full control over traffic in 4-way double roads.
 As Arduino Uno and Nano may work the same, so we want to use Arduino Nano for our
final design. Industrial compliance acquires best practice in minor area and cost.
These limitations suggest some improvements in initial designs to make it a final choice of the
client (Au et al, 2018).