Economical, energy efficient and portable home security system based on Raspberry Pi 3 using the concepts of OpenCV and MIME

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a design of a home security system which is economical, energy efficient and portable. The system provides the user complete control over its functionalities. The setup of the home security system involves the use of a Raspberry Pi 3 model B to which a Passive Infrared Sensor (PIR sensor) and a webcam are connected. The Raspberry Pi 3 model B uses a 1.2 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 for processing, while the PIR sensor is used to detect motion and the webcam is used to perform face detection and image capturing processes using OpenCV image processing library and Python programming language. During implementation of the system the PIR sensor is setup to detect motion in the secured environment, if motion is detected then the Raspberry Pi 3 model B makes use of the webcam to initiate the face detection process and on finding a face captures an image of the secured environment. The captured image is then sent to the E-Mail account of the owner using the concept of IoT, SMTP and MIME. Also, the proposed system provides scope for customization. Thus, the proposed system has the potential to overcome and replace existing systems.