BMS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & MANAGEMENT

Avalahalli, Yelahanka, Bengaluru-560064

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Project Synopsis
Academic Year 2022-23
Batch No: Guide Name: Submission Date:
27 Dr. Arunakumari B N 6 th October, 2022

Project Title :
IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter

Sl No USN Name
1 1BY19CS065 Keerthana R
2 1BY19CS151 Siddharth B
3 1BY19CS153 Snehalakshmi M
4 1BY19CS195 Ganesh Prakash

Project Execution Place

Project Category Application Project

BMS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & MANAGEMENT

Yelahanka, Bengaluru – 560 064

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Synopsis for the Project work

IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter

Submitted By:

Ms. Keerthana R USN: 1BY19CS065

Mr. Siddharth B USN: 1BY19CS151

Ms. Snehalakshmi M USN: 1BY19CS153

Mr. Ganesh Prakash USN: 1BY19CS195

Under the Guidance of

Dr. Arunakumari BN
 ABSTRACT

The Internet of Things (IoT) has drastically transformed almost every industry during the past ten
years. The Internet of Things is a notion that is very adaptable, dynamic, and global. Our project
proposes an IoT-based bidirectional visitor counter.
Shopping centres, marketing experts, and more recently religious and academic gatherings use visitor
statistics to track their organisational growth in terms of population (patronization), make wise
managerial and operational decisions, and make the most of opportunities, like applying for financial
aid.
Beam counters, thermal counters, video counters, and other counting techniques and counters have all
been employed over time. The majority of these counting methods, nevertheless, are antiquated and
unable to keep up with the current need for quicker and more precise visitor counts. Most counting
methods rely on humans for about 70% of operations, introducing a significant amount of errors due
to various procedural inefficiencies. Our project reduces all human interaction to a minimum, making
the process of keeping data on visitors' count less time-consuming, efficient, and almost error-free.
When the mall/limit hall is reached, the circuit conducts a work count of the number of people/visitors
in the area and sounds an alarm. On entry and exit, the counter is set up or down by one, respectively.
The building's lights are all off when nobody is in, and they are all turned on immediately on one's
entry.
We used a 1 x 4 LED matrix to display the state of the lights in relation to the number of visitors. The
Node MCU microcontroller is used to detect an enter or exit action and compute the data in order to
produce precise results. It gathers data from sensors and controls them with embedded computer code
stored in the microcontroller's ROM. The microcontroller checks the infrared receivers on a regular
basis. The IR Rays that fall on the IR receivers are impeded when an item passes over them. The in-
status, out-status, current status and a graph depicting the population over tim can be viewed from
Blynk, an open-source cloud platform. We can also figure out the status of LED from the cloud.Since
our system is ruling out human intervention in all possible level human errors is almost nullified.
IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 2

INTRODUCTION

In the last decade, the Internet of Things (IoT) has changed practically every business. The Internet
of Things is a highly adaptable, dynamic, and global concept. In this project, IoT components were
used to construct a visitor counter that can be viewed online. This visitor counter is compatible
with a wide range of smart home and automation devices. Another important use we're focusing
on is its use in vaccination rooms to keep track of the number of people in the room, such as
patients and medical personnel, in order to ensure excellent medical hygiene.

This is especially important in today's era of social alienation. It can also be used to keep public and
social events under the threshold, or the maximum number of persons permitted, and to adhere to
procedure.

There are a slew of other places where this technology could be useful. As the population grows,
it becomes more difficult to manage such a large number. Various sectors use a variety of
technologies to efficiently and without interruption count visitors. Each method, however, has
drawbacks such as inefficiency, expense, or both. After reading some notable studies on the
subject, we intend to provide a simple yet effective visitor counting system that can be accessed
online via a mobile or web application from anywhere in the world. This can help anyone who
wants to keep track of their guests and follow COVID requirements for any public event, big or
little.

The visitor counting system is built with an Arduino UNO. A well-known prototype board is the
Arduino UNO. The Arduino is connected to an ESP32 Wi-Fi modem in order to connect to an
internet router and access the cloud server. The counter circuit employs infrared sensors. The
Arduino-based IoT device broadcasts the number of visitors in the room to the cloud. Because the
data is saved in the cloud, it can be viewed from any smartphone or computer over the internet.
The ESP32 Wi-Fi Module connects an Arduino to a Wi-Fi network, allowing it to access the
internet and the cloud. It's a self-contained SOC with an integrated TCP/IP protocol stack that can
connect to a Wi-Fi network. A variety of application processors can offload whole Wi-Fi
networking activities to the ESP32.

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 3

The measurement of visitor traffic entering and exiting conference rooms, malls, sports venues,
and other comparable facilities is referred to as "visitor counting." There is a sense of urgency in
inventing circuits that will make life easier as living standards grow. Visitor counters have shown
to be quite useful in tracking crowd behaviour over time at a single place. It all started when a
mechanical tally counter was introduced to replace the tally stick. A tally (or tally stick) was a memory
tool used to keep track of numbers, sums, and even messages in ancient times.
Tallies have proven to be incredibly accurate in a variety of settings, including communication and
scheduling, as well as people counting, financial, and legal responsibilities. Several traffic
monitoring-related incidents have occurred at a number of well-known institutions around the
world in recent years (libraries, community centres, auditoriums, and so on). It was critical to
maintain track of visitors in order to finish the human traffic management work and predict tourist
flow in order to produce accurate results for corporate marketing and statistical research. This
demonstrates the speed with which people consume products and services. As a result, we believe
it's critical to recognise the challenges that our various organisations encounter and to provide
solutions by constructing a digital bidirectional visitor counter (DBVC).

The significance of design and construction comes from the fact that it ensures the health and
safety of building occupants at all times by reducing traffic congestion for visitors. It also generates
exact data reports for a variety of research and analytical purposes on an hourly, daily, monthly,
and annual basis. When the building's capacity is exceeded, the device alerts security, allowing the
facilities to be relieved of stress. We're using an infrared sensor in terms of hardware. Because it
is more reliable, a NodeMCU is used instead of a generic microcontroller-based development
board. Because it features a web app and an Android app that can display real-time data from the
controller unit, we chose Blynk IOT for the server.

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 4

MOTIVATION

In a Conference Hall, there were people trapped inside the hall and security guards closed the
conference rooms after finishing the seminar because the guards were unaware of total number
of people inside hall. Moreover, feedback of the number of people attending the seminar could not be
analysed as there wasn’t any registration process.

These problems gave us a perspective that if we could somehow analyse the number of people
entering and leaving the halls, these drawbacks could be avoided. This promoted the idea of
Bidirectional Visitor Counter in our mind through which we can keep a check on number of people
and allow all people to leave any building before sealing it. We can also count number of people to
analyse the feedback of people in any event.

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 5

LITERATURE SURVEY

[1] The paper proposes a methodology in which a bidirectional counter is used in an Industry to count
the number of employees entering and exiting the premises. The total amount of people are displayed
in an LCD and a beep is used that produces a sound when maximum amount of people have reached.
Although the system works fine, the information is not stored for further used and the amount of
electricity consumed seems to be high.

[2] The use of bidirectional Visitor counter is efficiently used in maintaining the limit of visitors to an
auditorium, hall, offices, malls, sports venue. In this paper sensors from which signals are received and
is regulated by Arduino Software. Wireless networking cannot be applied to this device.

[3] The main objective of this project is to count the total entry and exit of people and to automatically
turn ON and OFF the appliances to save electricity. The signal detected is operated by the software
present in the ROM. The main disadvantage is the usage of low efficient sensors that does not detect
the objects effectively.

[4] The system uses Arduino (IDE) to detect the signal received and uses it to automatically turn on
the lights for less energy saving. The system does not use any Wi-Fi module for using the data obtained
for further processing that has many applications in today’s era. The counter here increments the count
by 1 when the sensor detects any movement and decrements the count by one when people leave the
room.

[5] Visitor counter using Ultrasonic sensors are used to detect the movement of people in and out a
room and this data is displayed. The drawback of this system is it uses more amount of electricity even
when no movement of people is detected by the sensors. Effective components are not used that lowers
the demand of this system.

[6] COVID-19 is the world’s most critical health condition faced by people. This system was used to
take in limited people in a premise to reduce contact and was also used for sanitization purpose. The
visitor counter is not compatible when the surface area is extended. This system keeps all the lights
ON even when the number of people are less which consumes a lot of energy and cannot be used for
various extensions due to its drawbacks.

[7] This visitor counter is compatible with a wide range of smart home and automation devices.
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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 6

Another important use we're focusing on is its use in vaccination rooms to keep track of the number
of people in the room, such as patients and medical personnel, in order to ensure excellent medical
hygiene. This is especially important in today's era of social alienation. It can also be used to keep
public and social events under the threshold, or the maximum number of people allowed, as well as
to follow protocol.
The visitor counting system is powered by an Arduino UNO. The Arduino is connected to an ESP32
Wi-Fi modem in order to connect to an internet router and access the cloud server

[8] This project's main purpose is to save energy while also counting the number of persons in the
room.

Rather than manually collecting student attendance, we could attach a facial recognition camera to a
bidirectional visitor counter and have it count and take attendance for us in the future. We used an
Arduino UNO board, IR sensors, and an LCD display in this project. The project's major goal is to
reduce energy consumption and make counting how many people enter the facility easier.
The operation of the project is really simple and rapid. As a result, the most common places to find
this type are colleges, schools, and businesses. The project's completion approach can be broken down
into simple steps

[9] The device is supposed to make it easier for security officers to implement health protocols
effectively. The system consists of a 99.50 percent accurate hardware temperature sensor, TOF and IR
sensors to count visits in both directions, a Node MCU ESP32 as the main controller, and a website
that displays visitor temperature, number of visitors, number of outbound visitors, and available spots.
This device also has an SD card reader, which makes screening and recording guests much easier every
day.

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 7

EXISTING SYSTEM

This is a bidirectional counter which means it works in a two way. That means counter will be
incremented if person enters the room and will be decremented if a person leaves the room.
LCD displays this value which is placed outside the room.
This system is helpful for counting the number of people in an auditorium or halls for seminar
to avoid congestion. Moreover it can also be used to check the number of people who have
come to an event or a museum to watch a certain exhibit. Microcontroller is a reliable circuit
that takes over the task of counting the number of persons/ visitors in the room very accurately.
We will be showing both the In count i.e. number of people entering the room and Out count
i.e. number of people exiting the room on a 16x2 Alphanumeric LCD. An IR sensor is used to
monitor the person entering and exiting the room.
The microcontroller does the above job. It receives the signals from the sensors, and this signal
is operated under the control of software which is stored in ROM. Microcontroller 89s52
continuously monitor the Infrared Receivers. When any object pass through the IR Receiver's
then the IR Rays falling on the receiver are obstructed, this obstruction is sensed by the
Microcontroller.

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 8

LIMITATIONS OF EXISTING SYSTEM

Many a times, we need to monitor the people visiting places like a seminar hall, conference room or
a shopping mall. Bidirectional Visitor counter for human being is designed and presented in order to
count the visitors of an auditorium, hall, offices, malls, sports venue, farm yard etc. Various counting
processes and counters have been used over time, including beam counters, thermal counters, video
counting, and so on.

However they do pose some limitations such as:

 Outdated technology
 Unable to match the current demand for faster and more accurate visitor numbers
 Most counter methods rely 70% on human intervention
 Significant number of errors due to various procedural inefficiencies
 Lack of visual cue depicting the capacity of a venue
 Cost making is high

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 9

PROPOSED SYSTEM

The main aim of our project is to present the idea of Bidirectional Visitor Counter which will greatly
help us keep track of the number of people that are present inside a room or hall as well as keep track
of people entering and leaving. This way, we can easily form an analysis and get the feedback on all
the attendees in any event.

To reach the aim of our project, we will be using two IR sensor setup that will enable us to detect the
number of people entering and leaving a hall or room. We will also use a relay module that will switch
its LED on/off depending on the number of people that are present in the room or hall. This way, power
consumption will be less and we can maximise power efficiency. We will also use a buzzer which will
be like an alert system. Using this buzzer, we will get alerts whenever the number of people inside
increases or decreases compared to the amount of people that is prescribed. On our blynk app, we will
place a graph that will accurately plot the immediate positions of all the people in the room or hall.
This will greatly aid us to analyse the data on how the amount of people varies at any given time in a
day, week or month.

The tools and components we are using for our project is available in the “Visitors Counting” model.
This system is simple yet successful which is made up of an Arduino-controlled circuit that utilize IR
sensor modules to determine the amount of people present. This way, manual counting tasks can be
discarded. We will also be using two IR sensors that will enable us to trace the people coming in and
leaving the room or hall. One pair of IR sensor modules are incorporated with the gadget. One IR
Sensor will be placed within the room door and the other outside the room door respectively. Both
these IR Sensors are connected to the digital pins of the controller. Moreover, the relay module has a
familiar VCC and ground. We have a buzzer that will be used as our alert system. This is connected to
the NODEMCU’s digital pin again. The analogue pin will be connected to the servo motor. Then, the
virtual pins belonging to the blynk app are then mapped to these digital pins. Due to this, the Blynk
app will now display the total amount of visitors currently. The blynk will also display the amount of
people that entered and left the room or hall.

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 10

The coding of our project is implemented on Arduino IDE utilizing NODEMCU as controller plus
Blynk will act as the IOT platform. We will be mapping two IR sensor to each digital pins of the
controller which will trace the people entering and leaving any place. This number is then presented
on the screen of IDE. The relay module switch pins are mapped to the controller digital pins which are
turned on and off depending on the circumstances displayed in the table below:

Table 1: Number of LED on based on number of people

Current count of people Number of LED ON

No people are present 0 LED ON
Less than or equal to 5 1 LED ON
Less than or equal to 10 2 LED ON
Less than or equal to 15 3 LED ON
Less than or equal to 20 4 LED ON
More than 20 Buzzer ON

The servo motor will revolve whenever the input sensor detects anything and ouput servo moves
depending on the out count servo sensing. The motor operates only when the IR sensor detects an
incoming person.

The output IR sensor also operates the motor but it will not move unless there is detection of anyone
inside.

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 11

Comparison between existing system and proposed system

Existing System Proposed System

Bidirectional Counter to determine number IR Sensor to detect number of people
of people entering and leaving entering and leaving
LCD displays the value Relay module that uses LED on number of
people present in the room
Microcontroller to count number of people in Buzzer as an alert system
the room
IR sensor to monitor person entering and Graph on blynk app to accurately determine
leaving immediate positions of people in the room
Microcontroller receives signal from sensors, Two IR sensors placed inside and outside the
operated under software that is stored in rooms
ROM
Microcontroller 89s52 monitors Infrared Buzzer connected to NODEMCU pin
Receivers.
Obstructions are sensed by Microcontroller. Servo motor

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 12

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATIONS

(FUNCTIONAL & NON-FUNCTIONAL)

Functional Requirements:

Hardware Components:
• NodeMCU
• IR Infrared Sensor Module
• Relay Module 5V - 1 Channel Relay Module
• Power Supply 5V Supply
• Breadboard
• Connecting wires
• LED
• Buzzer

Software Components:
• Blynk IoT Cloud

Non-Functional Requirements:
• Reliability
• Accuracy
• Utility
• Usability
• Speed

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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 13

REFERENCES

[1] K Mohana Prasad, Pranjal Dhar, Naseem, (2019, October). Industrial Automation with
Bidirectional Visitor Counter. IOP Conference Series Materials Science and Engineering. DOI:
10.1088/1757-899X/5901/1/012012

[2] Dr.S.Deepa, Y.R Saravanakumar, P.Kirubakaran, K.Vijaykumar, M.Tharun, (2021, April).

Bidirectional Visitor Counter with Automatic Room Light Controller. International Research Journal
of Engineering and Technology.

[3]T.Sasikala, Mohammad Iliyaz Ahamad, G.Nagarajan, (2021, July). Efficient Utilization of an IoT
Device Using Bidirectional Visitor Counter. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing book
series (AISC volume 1317) .

[4]Subhanakar Chattoraj, Aditya Chakraborty, (2016, June). Bidirectional Visitor Counter with
Automatic Room Light Controller and Arduino as the Master Controller. International Journal of
Scientific and Research Publication, Volume 6, Issue 7.

[5] Alsan PParajuli, (2022, May). IoT Visitor Counter using ESP32 and Ultrasonic Sensor.

[6] Verma, K., Chauhan, S., Singh, J., & Kumar, N. (2021, August). Bidirectional Visitor Counter
using Microcontroller with Sanitization and Thermal Screening. In Journal of Physics: Conference
Series (Vol. 2007, No. 1, p. 012040). IOP Publishing.

[7] Gupta, S., Mandava, S., & Reddy, B. C. (2021). Arduino UNO Based Visitors Counting System
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[8] Sasikala, T., Ahamad, M. I., & Nagarajan, G. (2021). Efficient Utilization of an IoT Device
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[9] Soedjananingrat, R. R. F., Saputra, D. I., Handayani, D. R., Indriyana, S. Q., Charisma, A.,
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[10]. Chattoraj, S., & Chakraborty, A. (2016). Bidirectional visitor counter with automatic room
light controller and Arduino as the master controller. International Journal of Scientific and
Research Publications, 6(7), 357-359.
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IOT Based Bi-Directional Visitor Counter 14

[11]. Adjardjah, W., Essien, G., & Ackar-Arthur, H. (2016). Design and Construction of a
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[12]. RAJ, M. A. M. (2013). Automatic Room Light Controller With Bidirectional Visitor Counter
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[13]. Farooq, M. U., Shakoor, A., & Siddique, A. B. (2016). ARM based Bidirectional Visitor
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[14]. Sasikala, T., Ahamad, M. I., & Nagarajan, G. (2021). Efficient Utilization of an IoT Device
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[15]. Verma, K., Chauhan, S., Singh, J., & Kumar, N. (2021, August). Bidirectional Visitor Counter
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[16]. Archana, P., & Priya, R. (2016). PC Controlled Home Automation and Automatic Room Light
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[17]. Karthik, M., Shailesh, T., & Sruthi, N. (2016). Smart Power Control System with
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[20]. Kumar, M., & Singh, T. D. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF

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BMSIT&M, Department of Computer Science 2022- 2023