A Project Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Award the Degree of Master of Science in Embedded and Mobile Systems of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology
Computer laboratory plays the role of key elements with high interest for different categories
of populations. Event of fire, smoke, heat and water leakage when occurs could cause a big
loss for business continuity. Their equipment is very expensive and its usage is more profitable
to the population who used it. Many computer laboratories in the East Africa community region
are equipped with equipment for protection against fire, smoke, and heat such as fire
extinguishers, fans, and smoke detectors. However, when equipped with that equipment of
protection, a system for monitoring and controlling the computer laboratory environment and
warning the users in real-time is not yet implemented. This study aimed to develop an
automated computer laboratory that would control and monitor the computer laboratory
environment from the incident of fire, heat, smoke, and water leakage. The developed system
is divided into three nodes which communicate separately with one database in common where
the flame sensor is used to detect fire and allow the turning on automatically of a fire
extinguisher in case of fire detection, DHT22 and ultrasonic sensor are used for management
of fan controller, allowing to turn on automatically fan controller when there is high
temperature and if there is a presence of a person, smoke and water sensors are used to detect
the presence of smoke and water leakage. NodeMCU ESP8266, ESP32 WROOM-32D as a
microcontroller, access point, and software are used to accomplish the development of that
system. Different actions of warning users such as triggering buzzers and sending emails are
done when fire, smoke, and water leakage are detected, email is sent to the users when there is
a temperature more than 25℃. ThingSpeak cloud is used for the analysis of data from sensors,
control of fire extinguisher and fan controller were done via mobile application and web
applications. A prototyping methodology was used. The study aimed at interviewing 80
individuals based on their cluster. However, 64 individuals accepted to respond to our
questionnaires. Results showed that 57.81% of females were interested in the interview
compared to 42.19% of males. From the results which come of testing the prototype, it shows
that the variation of temperature varies between 23℃ and 27.60℃, 11 times of fire detection,
and 33 times of smoke detection. The developed system for IoT-based smart fan controllers
and fire prevention in computer labs with its supported equipment will contribute to securing
and protecting the computer laboratory against fire, smoldering, heating, and water leakage.