Emergency Communication and Access Control System

Abstract

Security and Access controlling has become a vital issue in the Information and Communication Technology era. Sometimes our own security and access controlling methodologies becomes our enemies when comes to emergency situations. For exampleFingerprint Door Access may prevent fire fighters to enter when there is a fire. Only very rich companies can afford hardware based automated emergency access control to prevent such mentioned incidentssince the available products are very expensive and complicated. So in this project, I have implemented anEmergency Communication and Access Control System (eCacs), which is a low cost and customizable solution to control doors, electric equipment and sense input from third-party or custom made devices like fire and door sensors. In addition to that, this project includes an emergency communication system that enables the users to broadcast messages in case of an emergency. Basically eCacs consists of three components as follows; 1. eCacs Web, The centralized control application which will help end users to manage devices, switches, sensors and users. 2. eCacs Box, The hardware client for the eCacs System which will control the connected equipment and sense inputs which are configured through the eCacs Web. 3. eCacs Client, The Client Software to bridge user and hardware with end-user which will provide the ease of access to the connected hardware, manage and sense the access and equipment status of connected peripheral devices. In designing eCacs, OpenSource Development Technologies like PHP, Python, MySQL, XML and Apache are used as the eCacs-Client Programming Languages. Hardware designing consists of RaspaberryPI Computer, self-modified Raspabian OS and hand crafted circuits and enclosure. The inventive idea behind this research is to use RaspberryPI as the Core processing module to reduce the Cost and the Size of this product as well to make it more flexible and efficient. RaspberryPI is an innovative credit card sized computer which unlocks more opportunities to the world by replacing bulky personnel computer (PC) which we use to integrate external hardware devices and components. Recently, a group of research students have created even a Super Computer using clustered RaspberryPI computers, which confirms the power and the efficiency of RaspaberryPI and the Raspabian OS.