Design and implementation of a Remote Data Acquisition System based on SMS

Md.Shafiqur Rahman, Susmita Ghose, Zamshed Iqbal Chowdhury,Abu Al Beruni,

Md.Enamul Haque Chowdhury
Applied Physics,Electronics & Communication Engineering
University of Dhaka
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email-shafiqrahman50@yahoo.com

Abstract—Data acquisition plays an important role in the field
of modern industry control. In many cases, remote data should
be transferred to monitor center which is far from the
manufacturing field. Traditional data acquisition system by
wired means could not meet the needs. This paper presents a
remote voltage, current and temperature measurement data
acquisition and analyzing system based on the SMS/GPRS
technology, so the wireless real-time transmission of the remote
monitoring data was achieved. The result of the experiment
shows that system works well for data acquisition and wireless
transferring based on GPRS rapidly which has a reference
value for remote diagnosis, remote monitoring and so on. As a
low cost, good expansibility and high performance data
acquisition system, this type data acquisition system can also
be applied in the fields of hydrological processes, environment
and air pollution monitoring and control.
Keywords-Remote unit; Central receiving unit, SMS, GPRS;
Sensor; Microcontroller.
I. INTRODUCTION
The conventional data acquisition system for voltage,
current, or temperature is that an assigned person visits
selected area and calculate the values of different sensors
manually. Then the collected values are used for further
calculation. This manual process can become very time
consuming and tiresome. It can cause human error and can
open an opportunity for corruption done by the human data
collector. Thus the conventional system can become
inaccurate and inefficient [7].
The recent advances in the field of information
technology have made the exchange of information fast,
secured and accurate. The digital revolution caused the rapid
drop of digital devices such as computers and
telecommunication devices. Circumstances that we find
ourselves today in the field of microcontrollers[2] had their
beginnings in the development of technology of integrated
circuits. These integrated circuits contained both processor
and peripherals. That is how the first chip containing a
microcomputer, or what would later be known as a
microcontroller came about. Nowadays microcontroller is
widely used in almost all electronic devices such as DVD
drive, washing machine, mobile station etc. In the field of
hardware controlling there is no better alternative than
microcontroller.
Communication networks like the internet, GSM
networks, etc. are available almost all the countries of the
world. In the work presented here, a technique has been
developed to calculate voltage, current or temperature from a
remote area automatically using the existing GSM networks
for cellular phones. This technique can be applied for
humidity, wind flow, etc as well. The sensors send its sensed
values like voltage, current, temperature, etc. by SMS to a
central server. The central server then stores the information
in database for analysis.
The SMS based data collection can be done very quickly
and efficiently. Data can be collected after any desired time
interval such as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis. By
applying complex encryption algorithms on the data SMS,
data security can be ensured. Though, the development cost
of the SMS based remote data acquisition system will be
higher than conventional system, any industry or company
should implement this system because it will eliminate the
possibility if corruption done by the data collector.
II. SYSTEM DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE
The proposed SMS based remote data acquisition system
composed of remote unit and a central receiving unit as
shown in fig1.The remote unit is installed from where the
process is actually monitored. It gathers required data about
the process and exchange information with the CRU by
SMS using GSM networks for cellular phones. The CRU is
heart of the system and is centrally located under the
operator's control.
III. REMOTE UNIT
The remote unit mainly consists of data acquisition unit, a
LCD display, RS232 serial port, a microcontroller unit and a
GSM modem
A. Data Acquisition Unit
This section consists of
Temperature sensing circuit.
Current sensing circuit.
Voltage sensing Circuit.
For temperature sensing circuit we use LM35 and a non-
inverting amplifier. The LM35[4] are precision integrated-
circuit temperature sensors whose output is linearly
proportional to the Celsius temperature. The current sensing
circuit consists a sensing part and amplifier. For voltage
sensing circuit we use simply resistors and capacitor.

Fig1: Block diagram of SMS based remote data acquisition system.
B . LCD DISPLAY
The display is a standard LM020a[1] which displays 2
lines of 16 characters (16×2). Each character is of 5×10
pixels. The display receives ASCII codes for each character
at the data inputs (D0–D7). The data is presented to the
display inputs by the MCU, and latched in by the pulsation
of the E (Enable) input. The RW (Read/Write) line can be
tied low (write mode), as the LCD is receiving data only.
The RS (Register Select) input allows commands to be sent
to the display. RS = 0 selects command mode, RS = 1 data
mode. The display itself contains a microcontroller; the
standard chip in this type of display is the Hitachi HD44780.
It must be initialized according to the data and display
options required.
C. Control Unit
This is the main part of the remote unit. It controls each
individual section of the remote unit. It is also called
microcontroller unit. The PIC16F876A[2] is used here.
Because it belongs to the mid range family of the PICmicro
devices. It is one of the most popular microcontrollers in the
world for its high performance, rich instruction set (MCS-
51®), and low cost. It has two 8 bit ports, one 6 bit port total Identification Module (SIM) in the modem. The AT
22 I/O lines[5]. Different peripherals of the system are
connected with its ports. It has 14.3KB of program memory
and 256 byte of EEPROM. Full 8 Bit functionality on PORT
B-C and 6 bit functionally on PORTA. Port B is connected
to the LCD display. Port C is connected to the RS232 board.
For very fast operation (up to 20MHz) here we use a 4MHz
Crystal. It is possible to use Zero Insertion Force (ZIF)
sockets with the control unit. ZIF sockets are useful where
the chips will be removed from the control unit many times.
The firmware inside the microcontroller’s program memory
is built using two layers – the Driver Layer and the
Application Layer. The Driver Layer contains protocols for
accessing different hardware peripherals such as LCD, Data
acquisition unit, RS232 serial port, GSM modem, etc. On the
top of the Driver Layer, the Application Layer contains
.
routines for calculation, display, data SMS frame creation,
etc. Application Layer calls different routines of the Driver
Layer to access hardware peripherals.
D. RS 232 Serial Port
RS232 is the most known serial port used to interface and
transmit the desired data in communication. Though the serial
port is hard enough to program than the parallel port, this is
the most effective method in which the data transmission
requires less wire (only three links – transmit, receive and
common ground) that yields the low system cost. The two
pins TxD & RxD are used for transmit and receive data
between the communication devices. There are some other
lines in this port which are set as default[1].
E. Modem
A GSM modem is interfaced with the micro-controller's
serial (RS232) port for sending and receiving SMS. Using
the FBUS protocol, the microcontroller sends different
commands to the modem and receives data SMS frames
from the GSM modem[6] The serial communication with the
modem is full duplex 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit and at
115200 bauds. We have used Grameen[3] Subscriber
commands are the basic commands that communicate with
the GSM mobile phone. Table1 indicates some common AT
commands necessary for SMS transmission and reception.
Detailed format of AT commands are available in ENFORA
GSM modem’ guidelines.
Command Description
AT Attention Command
AT+CPMS Preferred Message Storage
AT+CNMI New Message Indication to TE
AT+CMGR Read Message
AT+CMGS Send Message
AT+CMSS Send From Storage
AT+CMGW Write Message To Memory
AT+CMGD Delete Message
 Fig: Schematic diagram of complete remote unit
IV. CENTRAL RECEIVING UNIT
The central receiving unit mainly consists of a GSM
modem, MCU, RS232 serial port and Computer. The GSM
Modem TC35 is used to receive SMS. TC35 is introduced by
SIEMENS which is a dedicated modem, the module
integrates the radio frequency circuit and base-band circuit,
and it provides the standard AT command interface to users.
The module provides fast, reliable and secure transmission
for data, voice, short messaging and fax, and it can
convenience the application development and design for
users..To interface the modem with the MCU, an RS232
Module is used in between them. This module converts the
TTL logic levels compatible with the Computers’ COM1
port. The MCU routinely interrogates the modem to look for
new SMS messages sent from the remote unit. SMS
messages are then downloaded, decoded and then cancelled
from the modem memory. The communication between the
PC and the MCU is implemented using the RS232 module
and the decoded SMS is displayed on Microsoft hyper
terminal. The schematic diagram of central receiving unit is
shown in fig below:

V. DESIGN OF THE SYSTEM SOFTWARE
The system is focused on resolving the remote wireless
communication between the central monitoring station and
remote monitoring station. The data communication between
the above equipments is realized by using GSM wireless
communications module TC35 which is controlled by AT
commands. Short message mode is adopted to transmit data.
A SOFTWARE DESIGN OF REMOTE UNIT
The main tasks of the remote unit include:
to convert and deal with the data collected by
the remote unit through the A/D converter.
to show the measured Voltage, Current and
temperature on LCD.
Fig: Program Flowchart for remote unit
B. Software design of central receiving unit
Its main functions have:
to receive SMS sent by the remote unit
to decode the downloaded SMS from GSM
modem
to display the receive data by Microsoft hyper
terminal
The program flowchart for central receiving unit is shown in
fig below:
to send the real time data to the central
receiving unit.
Microcontrollers are programmable devices. They do exactly
what they are told to do by the program, and nothing else! A
program is a list of instructions, along with any data needed to
carry them out. Flowcode allows us to create simple
microcontroller applications by dragging and dropping icons
on to a flowchart to create simple programs. These programs
can control external devices attached to the microcontroller
such as LED's, LCD displays etc.Once the flowchart has been
designed, its behavior can be simulated in Flowcode before
the flowchart is compiled, assembled and transferred to a
Chip. The program flowchart for remote unit is shown below:
VI Result and Discussion
Different kinds of data acquisition unit like Voltage,
Current, and Temperature are connected to the ADC0,
ADC1, and ADC2 pin of the microcontroller. A
16*2character LCD (HD44780) is interfaced with the
microcontroller PORTB using 4 data wire mode. Different
reading like Voltage, Current and Temperature are
sequentially displayed here. The RS232 module is
connected to PORTC of the microcontroller and GSM
modem is interfaced with the RS232 module by DB9
 Fig: Program Flowchart for receiving unit
connector. When the microcontroller commands the GSM
modem thorough RS232 module the modem start sending
message from the remote unit.The central receiving unit
receive the SMS from remote unit. Using the Microsoft
Hyper terminal from Computer we read the SMS send by
remote unit. Finally the received data is saved to a database.
An SMS based remote data acquisition system prototype is
developed here and several experiments have been
conducted. We developed one remote unit and one central
server. The total time taken to get a data SMS from the
remote unit to the central server is approximately 30
seconds. This time may vary a little bit depending upon the
GSM network condition. The data collection can be done at
any time or periodically such as hourly, daily, weekly or
monthly basis. Sometimes SMS massages are not delivered
by the GSM network. We have developed the protocol such
that if data SMS is not received after one minute, the server
tries again to read the message. In this way, the server
makes total three attempts. If data SMS is not received in
three attempts, the server shows network error massages. In
our experiment, for 95% cases, data SMS was received
successfully by one attempt. For the remaining 5% cases,
data SMS was received after second or third attempt.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an SMS based remote data acquisition system
has been proposed. Different hardware and firmware unit of
the remote unit is described. The central server’s different
modules and the communication protocol with the remote
unit is also shown. Several experiments with one remote
unit and one central server have been conducted. Our future
work includes interfacing a General Packet Radio Service
(GPRS) modem with the internet connection so that faster
and continuous data can be received in the central server.
Applications can be implemented using classical TCP/IP
programming techniques or using DTSP protocol in a Data
Socket connection. The advantage of using of Data Socket
technology in remote monitoring over the network or
internet is the easy way of implementation of
communication between applications leaving the
programmers to focus on the measurement and data
processing operations, and not to the communication
REFERENCES
[1] http://www.matrixmultimedia.com/
[2] http://www.microchip.com
[3] Grameen Phone, http://www.grameen-info.org
[4] Embedtronics, http://www.embedtronics.com
[5]Microcontrollers & Embedded System Designs,
http://www.ucdevelopers.page.tl/
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Mohamed, S.A.R., ―SMS gateway interface remote
monitoring and controlling via GSM SMS‖,
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