Internet of Things - A Developing Technology

Did you know that more than 77 percent of businesses are reliant on technology for their progress? Other than Big data and Cloud, IoT has produced an exceptional influence on the market. It appears as if what once was an imaginary, has now evolved into reality.

Noticing the progress rate in the technology marketplace, we at Webisdom certain to do somewhat new and different. Our curiosity about succeeding technologies run to analysis and thus execution.

The Beginning

While moving forward with the goal of making people's life easier, we've shaped several web and mobile experiences but somewhere down the line, something was still absent! After thinking about what's next, we understood that the next big thing is apparently the current small one i.e. Internet of Things - A developing technology.

We choose to spread our opportunities and grow an intermediary Internet of Things system that included the usage of software and hardware as well. The system was called as Footfall Counter System.

Timeline and Journey

So what's truly a footfall counter? It's a structure which is used to tally the number of people in coming and going any venue. Different businesses like retail, shopping malls, banking etc. can take benefit of such a system to analyze their traffic rate and improve plans. Such system can be beneficial for numerous purposes such as calculating traffic trends, finding conversion ratio and estimating the efficiency of campaigns.

Keeping the final project theme in mind, we initiated with the base work. The progress of this project claimed the use of both hardware and software components for execution.

The major contest that came right at the first step was the electronic electrical system. In the group of knowledgeable IT engineers and coders, we were scratching heads to find the abilities of an electrical specialist. Since the group and scope were limited, we went forward with the basic knowledge procedure.

We discovered the web from top to bottom and left to right. Our believed was to learn more and more so that we surplus minimum time in unnecessary procedures during the progress stage. With the supervision of technical blogs on this topic and study of related projects, we agreed on the basics involved in the system. YouTube videos served as our lifeguards as they provided better accepting and allowed us to go forward to the progress phase.

The system includes several mechanisms including sensors, lasers, Arduino microcontroller, batteries, LEDs etc. We generated an overall system with a laser source and sensor plate located opposite to each other. The system comprises laser diodes associated in parallel to the power source. In the normal stage (without interruption), both the laser rays are straight projected on the Arduino board. On the other hand, when an object or person arrives from either of the directions, a beam breaks. This outcome in the change of worth which is presented on the counter associated with the Arduino board.

During the complete procedure, we had to manage to the system controller which was to be done via coding. The program is associated with the Arduino board which delivers and relates the varying values with the threshold value. In the normal state, the value of the counter stays constant while on breaking the laser beam, it upsurges or reductions by 1.

After working through numerous phases of testing and functioning on the idea time and again, we were prosperous in emerging the footfall counter system. All we had to do was discover, study and implement.

Final Accomplishment

With continuous efforts and learning in our passage, we were prosperous in the construction of a system that was accomplished of totaling the number of people visiting any particular destination.

Established using prototyping boards and lasers, the device used in the system tracks the number of people incoming and outgoing any entrance. This tracking leads to the gathering of statistics (in the form of a number of people) which is sent over to the cloud. This data is then examined and shown as altered reports and charts.

Over a period of time, the data composed via this system can start forecasting patterns which in turn, let’s well decision making. This solution, when organized in a restaurant, permitted the organization them to improve the usage of their staff and cut the procedure costs by an estimable 13.87%.

System Features:

System based on boards and lasers

Tracks footfalls

Cloud-based data used for different reports and charts

Allows better decision making