UNIVERSITI TEKNIKAL MALAYSIA MELAKA

AUTOMATIC PET FEEDER USING RASPBERRY PI

This report is submitted in accordance with requirement of the Universiti Teknikal

Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) for the Bachelor of Computer Engineering Technology

(Computer Systems) with Honours

by

NURNABILAH BINTI ZAKARIA

B071310772

941108-03-5710

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY 2016

UNIVERSITI TEKNIKAL MALAYSIA MELAKA

BORANG PENGESAHAN STATUS LAPORAN PROJEK SARJANA MUDA

TAJUK: Automatic Pet Feeder using Raspberry Pi

SESI PENGAJIAN: 2016/17 Semester 1

Saya NURNABILAH BT ZAKARIA

mengaku membenarkan Laporan PSM ini disimpan di Perpustakaan Universiti

Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) dengan syarat-syarat kegunaan seperti berikut:

1. Laporan PSM adalah hak milik Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka dan penulis. 2. Perpustakaan Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka dibenarkan membuat salinan

untuk tujuan pengajian sahaja dengan izin penulis. 3. Perpustakaan dibenarkan membuat salinan laporan PSM ini sebagai bahan

pertukaran antara institusi pengajian tinggi.

4. **Sila tandakan ( )

SULIT

TERHAD

TIDAK TERHAD

(Mengandungi maklumat yang berdarjah keselamatan atau

kepentingan Malaysia sebagaimana yang termaktub dalam

AKTA RAHSIA RASMI 1972)

(Mengandungi maklumat TERHAD yang telah ditentukan oleh

organisasi/badan di mana penyelidikan dijalankan)

(TANDATANGAN PENULIS)

Alamat Tetap:

Lot 1452

Kampung Kekabu Lemal,

17000 Pasir Mas, Kelantan, Malaysia.

Disahkan oleh:

(TANDATANGAN PENYELIA)

Cop Rasmi:

** Jika Laporan PSM ini SULIT atau TERHAD, sila lampirkan surat daripada pihak berkuasa/organisasi

berkenaan dengan menyatakan sekali sebab dan tempoh laporan PSM ini perlu dikelaskan sebagai

SULIT atau TERHAD.

iii

DECLARATION

I hereby, declared this report entitled “Automatic Pet Feeder using Raspberry Pi” is the results of my own research except as cited in references.

Signature :

Name : NURNABILAH BINTI ZAKARIA

Date : 23 DECEMBER 2016

iv

APPROVAL

This report is submitted to the Faculty of Engineering Technology of UTeM as a

partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Bachelor of Computer

Engineering Technology (Computer Systems) with Honours. The member of the

supervisory is as follow:

……………………………….

(Project Supervisor)

v

ABSTRACT

Automatic feeder for pet is developing to ease the pet owner fulfills their

responsibilities to feed their pet at home. They can feed their pet anytime and

anywhere by using this system. In this project, Raspberry Pi will be used in the

system as a main part and sensors will be used to provide inputs to the Raspberry Pi

in order for the system to working. Besides, this automatic feeder makes the pet

owner easy to control how much food is given to their pet. This is because suitable

amounts of food that will be given to pet depend on the programming of servo motor to

control the speed and positioning. As they know, pets need to eat several times a day,

up to 5 times. In this system, it will make sure pet can eat when its hungry and if in

the bowl contain the food, motor will not rotate .Hence, the problem of wasting the

food can be avoid by using this feeder. Besides, most pets eat dry food. The pet owner

cannot leave out wet food because it will go bad in the time that pet has to eat it. But

with this feeder, all of the food is in an air tight container.

vi

ABSTRAK

Bekas makanan automatik untuk haiwan peliharaan dicipta untuk memudahkan

pemilik haiwan kesayangan memenuhi tanggungjawab mereka untuk memberi

makanan kepada kucing mereka di rumah. Mereka boleh memberi makanan kepada

kucing mereka bila-bila masa dan di mana sahaja dengan menggunakan sistem ini.

Dalam projek ini, Raspberry Pi akan digunakan dalam sistem sebagai bahagian

utama sistem dan ultrasonic dan infrared sensor akan digunakan sebagai input kepada

Raspberry Pi. Selain itu, bekas makanan automatik ini menjadikan pemilik haiwan

kesayangan mudah untuk mengawal berapa banyak makanan yang diberikan kepada

haiwan kesayangan mereka. Ini kerana jumlah kuantiti makanan yang sesuai akan

diberikan kepada haiwan bergantung kepada pengaturcaraan motor servo untuk

mengawal kelajuan dan kedudukan. Mereka juga tahu, haiwan perlu makan beberapa

kali sehari, iaitu sehingga 5 kali. Dalam sistem ini, ia akan memastikan haiwan

kesayangan boleh makan apabila lapar dan jika dalam mangkuk mengandungi

makanan, motor tidak akan berputar .Oleh itu, masalah pembaziran makanan boleh

dielakkan dengan menggunakan sistem ini. Selain itu, kebanyakan haiwan makan

makanan kering. Pemilik haiwan peliharaan tidak boleh meninggalkan makanan

basah kerana makanan akan rosak semasa haiwan memakannya. Tetapi dengan

sistem ini, semua makanan disimpan dalam bekas kedap udara.

vii

DEDICATIONS

Alhamdulillah, praise to the Almighty Allah S.W.T

This project is dedicated to:

My mom Rohana Ismail,

My beloved family,

My Supervisor Sir Zulhasnizam Hasan,

And all my friends Qayyum, Fadilah,Samsiah, Hannan,Mumtaz and Amira,

Thanks for supporting me all the way.

viii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to take a deepest appreciation to my

supervisor Mr. Zulhasnizam bin Hasan from the Faculty of Engineering

Technology University Technical Malaysia Melaka for his essential

supervision, patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge

towards the completion of this project.

I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to my classmates for

their continuous support throughout the achievement of this project.

Not to forget thanks to my beloved mother. Your prayer for me was

what sustained me this far. I would also like to thank all of my friends who

supported me in writing, and incanted me to strive towards my goal.

ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION................................................................................................................... iii

APPROVAL .......................................................................................................................... iv

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………….v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................................... 8

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................... 9

LIST OF TABLE ................................................................................................................ xiv

LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................... xv

CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................................ 1

1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Background .................................................................................................................... 1

1.3 Problem Statement ......................................................................................................... 2

1.4 Objectives ...................................................................................................................... 2

1.5 Scope of projects ............................................................................................................ 3

1.6 Significant of study ........................................................................................................ 3

1.7 Structure of project ........................................................................................................ 4

CHAPTER 2 ............................................................................................................................ 5

2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Raspberry Pi ................................................................................................................... 5

2.2.1 History of Raspberry Pi ........................................................................................... 6

2.2.2 Raspberry Pi 2, Model B ......................................................................................... 6

2.2.3 Comparison between different Raspberry Pi models ............................................. 7

2.2.4 Power supply for Raspberry Pi ............................................................................... 9

2.3 Infrared sensor .............................................................................................................. 11

2.3.1 Working principle of IR sensor ............................................................................. 12

2.3.2 Infrared Sensor Circuit or Obstacle Sensing Circuit ...................................... 13

2.4 Ultrasonic Sensor ........................................................................................................ 14

2.5 Servo Motor ................................................................................................................. 15

2.6 Android Application .............................................................................................. 16

2.6.1 Pushover Appication ............................................................................................. 16

x

2.7 Past Related Search ................................................................................................ 17

2.7.1 Intelligent Pet Monitor System with the Internet of Things.................................. 17

2.7.2 Online DIY Timed Pet Feeder from Instructables ......................................... 18

2.8 Pet Feeding System ...................................................................................................... 19

2.8.1 Self-Replenishing Feeders .................................................................................... 19

2.8.2 Automatic Timed Feeders ..................................................................................... 20

2.9 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 21

CHAPTER 3 .......................................................................................................................... 22

3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 22

3.2 Project Methodology .................................................................................................... 22

3.3 Block Diagram ............................................................................................................. 24

3.3.1 Raspberry Pi .......................................................................................................... 24

3.3.2 Infrared Sensor ...................................................................................................... 25

3.3.3 Ultrasonic Sensor .................................................................................................. 26

3.3.4 Servo Motor .......................................................................................................... 26

3.3.5 Pet Feeder Valve ................................................................................................... 26

3.3.6 Android Application ............................................................................................. 26

3.4 NOOBS (New Out Of Box Software): Raspbian Operating System ........................... 27

3.5 Raspberry Pi Programming: Python ............................................................................. 28

3.5.1 Python: time library ........................................................................................ 29

3.5.2 Python: RPi.GPIO library .............................................................................. 29

CHAPTER 4 .......................................................................................................................... 30

4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 30

4.2 Project Software ........................................................................................................... 30

4.2.1 Python Files .......................................................................................................... 30

4.2.2 Connecting Pushover application with Raspberry Pi .......................................... 33

4.3 Project Hardware and Electronic Component .............................................................. 34

4.3.1 Connecting ultrasonic sensor with Raspberry Pi .................................................. 34

4.3.2 Connecting Infrared sensor with Raspberry Pi ..................................................... 36

4.3.3 Connecting servo motor with Raspberry Pi .......................................................... 37

4.4 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 39

CHAPTER 5 .......................................................................................................................... 40

5.1 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 40

5.2 Recommendations ........................................................................................................ 40

REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................... 41

xi

APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................ 41

Table Gantt Chart ................................................................................................................... 50

xii

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURES TITLE PAGES

2.1 Overview of Raspberry Pi 2 6 2.2 5V mciro USB Power Supply 9

2.3 Chart of Raspberry Pi 2 model B Power Usage 9 2.4 GPIO Pinout Diagram 9 2.5 Infrared Obstacle Detection Sensors 12 2.6 A typical IR sensing circuit 13 2.7 Ultrasonic sensor 14

2.8 Ultrasonic sensor is connected to Raspberry Pi 14

2.10 Servo motor with Raspberry Pi 17

2.11 Logo of Pushover Inventor 17 2.12 API Token/Key 17 2.13 Automatic pet feeder 18

2.14 The Network Structure of WSN Pet feeder 18

2.15 Timed Pet Feeder with Arduino and Servo Motor 18

2.16 Self-replenishing Feeder by Microban 19

2.17 Samples of Automatic Timed Feeders by Different Companies. 20

3.1 Flowchart of project methodology 23

3.2 Block diagram for the pet feeding system 24

3.3 Raspberry Pi 25 3.4 IR sensor 25

3.5 Example of application IR sensor to detect the food 25

3.6 Example simple notification Android 27

3.7 Raspbian’s main window screen and start up menu 28

4.1

Raspberry Pi window screen to open Python 2

31

xiii

4.2 Output window for pet feeder system 31

4.3 Raspberry Pi window screen to open

scheduled task

32

4.4 Window Interface to edit scheduled

task

33

4.5 Example of code in php file 34

4.6 Interfacing Raspberry Pi with HC-

SR04

34

4.7 Interfacing HC-SR04 circuit diagram

with Raspberry Pi

35

4.8 Example of script in Python 35

4.9 Ultrasonic sensor at pet feeder 36

4.10 Led of infrared sensor light up when

detect food

37

4.11 3D printed “tubemout” connect with

servo motor

37

4.12 Tubemount merge with PVC T and

90degree PVC

38

4.13 Tubemout and PVC Twithout 90

degree PVC

38

4.14 Automatic Pet Feeder using Raspberry Pi 38

xiv

LIST OF TABLES

Table Title Pages

2.1 Raspberry Pi's Model 2B Specification 7

2.2

Comparison between Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and

Raspberry Pi Model B+

8

2.3

Main GPIO connector

10

2.4

Different type of Infrared region

11

4.1

Condition for motor to rotate

39

5.0

Gantt Chart

50

xv

LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

A = Ampere

DC = Direct Current

GPIO = General Purpose Input/Output

IDE = Integrated Development Environment

IR = Infrared sensor

OS = Operating System

PWM = Pulse Width Modulation

PC = Personal Computer

PHP = Hypertext Preprocessor

Wi-Fi = Wireless Fidelity

HTML = Hypertext Mark-up Language

I/O = Input and Output

HDMI = High Definition Multimedia Interface

NOOBS = New Out Of The Box Software

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

This chapter will explain the project with its background, problem statement,

objectives, project scope and limitation, project significance and thesis outline.

1.2 Background

In this modern age, people running out of time to complete their daily activities. But,

this cannot be reason not to fulfill their responsibility include as a pet owner.

Statistic from PFMA (Pet Food Manufacturer’s Association) show that in 2016 it is

estimated that 11million (40% of) households have pets. The pet population stands

at around 57 million. Cat population is 7.5 million and 17% household with a cat.

Automatic feeder for pet is developing to ease the pet owner fulfills their

responsibilities to feed their pet at home. They can feed their pet anytime and

anywhere by using this system. In this project, Raspberry Pi will be used in the

system as a main part and sensors will be used to provide inputs to the Raspberry Pi

in order for the system to working. Besides, this automatic feeder makes the pet

owner easy to control how much food is given to their pet. This is because suitable

amounts of food that will be given to pet depend on the programming of servo motor

to control the speed and positioning.

As they know, pets need to eat several times a day, up to 5 times. In this system, it

will make sure the bowl not become empty for a long time hence, the problem of

wasting the food and over-feed the pet can be avoid by using this feeder. Besides,

2

most pets eat dry food. The pet owner cannot leave out wet food because it will go

bad in the time that pet has to eat it. But with this feeder, all of the food is in an air

tight container.

1.3 Problem Statement

Nowadays, almost every family have a pet, even they are busy with their work.

Owning a pet in these days are not easy as those pet needs to be take care when the

pet owner not at home. Rushing for works and other priority leads to the time

constraints in feeding their pet, and having to feed their pet in daily basis becomes a

burden to the pet owners. Besides, think about the fact that, the pet owner must be

want to make sure their pet gets fed at the same time every day, even when they are

not at home. Pets are very accustomed to a schedule, whether their owners realize it

or not. The pet owner cannot expect someone else to follow their schedule. Therefore,

a new invention has come out as the solution for this problem which is the Automatic

feeder for pet using Raspberry Pi. Instead of asking neighbour or friends to feed the

pet, now the pet owner can feed their pet every time and everywhere without stepping

foot into their home by just click inside of a smartphone app to feed their pet.

1.4 Objectives

The objectives of this project are:

i. To study the behavior of the pet when the automatic system is

implemented at their home.

ii. To develop the automatic system for pet feeder using Raspberry PI.

iii. To analyses how the develop system work and the impact of the automatic pet feeder to the pet.

3

1.5 Scope of projects

The area of the scope for this project is focus on cat at home. This pet feeder only

supplies the food and no water. In this project, Raspberry Pi work together with

Infra-red sensor to detect the level of food in the bowl. It will prevent the overflow

of food in the bowl. Besides, ultrasonic sensors use sonar to determine the distance

to an object. Infrared sensor can only tell when an obstacle is within a certain

distance (threshold distance). It also cannot be used outside in the sun. Next, like

any other computer, the Raspberry Pi also uses an operating system and the “stock”

OS is a flavor of Linux called Raspbian. Servo motor will be used to dispense the

food into the bowl. After sensor connect with Raspberry PI to send data, the

Raspberry PI will be communicate with motor and link to android application,

Pushover using internet connection to send notification to user, “Done feed cat”.

1.6 Significant of study

In today world, time has become an essential aspect in the daily life’s and

nowadays people has to put up a race against the time as they not have as much of

time to take care everything. Hence, they hope for a new invention or new technology

that can ease their work in order to save their time include as pet owner. Therefore, a

new invention which is Automatic pet feeder using Raspberry Pi will become

important because will be able to give the benefits for both pets and their owner .This

is because the pet can get feed on time and the owner also can save their time and

energy. Lastly, this project also is mainly focused on the performance of Raspberry

PI which depends on the programming and servo motor. By the good performance of

Raspberry Pi and servo motor the objectives of the project will be achieved.

4

1.7 Structure of project

Thesis for this semester cover three chapters and the following is the outline for

each chapter in order to understand the project reports.

The first chapter introduces about the project background, objective of the project

which needs to be achieved, problem statement of the project, project scope and

limitation, and project significance.

The second chapter will explain briefly about literature review .This chapter

required to do more research and gather more information about the project such as

the theory, method of project that available, and some characteristic of component of

hardware or software that used in this project.

The third chapter describes about the project methodology that will be implemented

in this project. It explains the process flow of the whole project which can be

understood from the flowchart. In this chapter also, will be explain the procedure taken

to complete the project which consist the detail development of the project.

The fourth chapter describes about the results and discussion. It will explain the

results based on the objectives of the project and also difficulties that faces when

finishing these projects.

The last chapter explains about conclusion and recommendation of the project. It

will explain how future work should be and the suggestion for recommendation

project.

5

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

New technologies of an Automatic pet feeder using Raspberry Pi will be

implementing to assist pet owner in order to manage their pet. For this chapter, to

obtain the idea and information about this project, some research has been studied

based on the journals that are related to the scope of this project work and

methodology.

2.2 Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that helps people of all ages to

learn computing in languages like Python and Scratch. It’s proficient of doing

almost everything reaching from browsing the internet, playing high-definition

video, to word- processing and playing games.

Besides, before this in the middle 80’s, kids have to code computers to use

them, as a results, these kids makes an in-depth understanding on how computers

work. But now with easier application and software developed around the world, the

understanding of computers seems to be diminished. To deal with this problem,

founder of Raspberry Pi thought of reigniting the inspiration of programming in the

public. Since the creation of Raspberry Pi, people around the world use it in a

variety of application, taking advantage of its size, portability, programmability, and

connectivity. The sky is the limit !(Pi, 2015)

6

2.2.1 History of Raspberry Pi

In 1990s, most of the teenager came for interview had a skill as a

programmer compared to nowadays, almost people just know the basic of

programming. The idea of Raspberry Pi began in 2006, when a group of

people from University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory which led by

Dr. Eben Upton became worried about the decreased number of the skill

students in the Computer Science field.

First idea of the Raspberry Pi was based on the Atmel ATmega644

microcontroller. Its PCB layout and schematics were in public. Dr. Eben

Upton were collected a group of teachers, academics and computer fanatics

to invent an inexpensive computer whereas Raspberry Pi to encourage

children and people outside involved in this field. (Ms. Sejal V. Gawande*,

Dr. Prashant R. Deshmukh 2015).

2.2.2 Raspberry Pi 2, Model B

The Raspberry Pi 2, Model B as showed from Figure 2.1 below is the second

group of Raspberry Pi. The original of Raspberry Pi 1 Model B+ in February

2015 was replaced by this model. It also has the power consumption to be as

low as possible. This single board contains two USB ports, GPIO pin, Ethernet

port, Audio/video port, slot for camera, HDMI port, and power-in port.

Figure 2.1: Overview of Raspberry Pi 2

7

The following lists the Raspberry Pi Model 2 B features in Table 2.1:

Table 2.1: Raspberry Pi’s Model 2B Specification

Operating system Linux

RAM 1Gb

USB port 4 USB ports

Ethernet Socket Yes

Micro SD Card Slot Yes (on underside)

HDMI port Yes

CSI Camera Connector Yes

Dimensions The PCB is 85 x 56 x 17 mm.

Moreover, Raspberry Pi 2 Model B also used ARMv7 processor. The

original architecture in BCM2836 is same to BCM2835. The only

significant difference is the removal of the ARM1176JZF-S processor and

replacement with a quad-core Cortex- A7 cluster.

2.2.3 Comparison between different Raspberry Pi models

Table 2.2: Comparison between Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, Raspberry Pi 2

Model B and Raspberry Pi Model B+

Raspberry Pi

3 Model B

Raspberry

Pi 2 Model B

Raspberry Pi

Model B+

Processor

Chipset

Broadcom

BCM 2837

64Bit Quad

Core

Broadcom

BCM 2836

32Bit Quad

Core ARM

Broadcom

BCM 2835

32Bit ARMv6k

at 700MHz

8

GPU

Videocore

IV@400MHz

Videocore

IV@250MHz

Videocore

IV@250MHz

Processor

speed QUAD Core@1.2GHz

QUAD Core @

900MHz

Single

Core@700MHz

RAM 1GB SDRAM @

400MHz

1GB SDRAM

@400MHz

5.12MB SDRAM@

400MHz

Storage MicroSD MicroSD MicroSD

USB 2.0 4xUSB Ports 4x USB Ports 4xUSB Ports Max Power

Draw/Voltage 2.5A @5V 1.8A @ 5V 1.8A @ 5V

GPIO 40pin 40pin 40pin

Ethernet Port Yes Yes Yes

WiFi Built in No No

Bluetooth LE Built in No No

Video Output HDMI/Composite via

RCA Jack

HDMI/Composite via

RCA Jack

HDMI/Composite via

RCA Jack

Audio Output 3.5mm Jack 3.5mm Jack 3.5mm Jack

9

2.2.4 Power supply for Raspberry Pi

The power source that a Raspberry Pi uses is a micro USB plug of 5-volt (V)

direct current (DC) lines, also shown in Figure 2.2. No data connections are

wired to this socket. Hence, any power supply ranging from the smartphone

charger to Raspberry Pi’s power supply would be sufficient as long as the

output voltage reading meets the specification. It is also noted that the

Raspberry Pi kit power supply is rated to 5V 1A, and Raspberry Pi Model 2 B

requires a minimum current of 500-700 mA (Liang, 2013) (Norris, 2014).

Figure 2.2: 5V micro USB Power Supply

Figure 2.3: Chart of Raspberry Pi 2 model B

Power Usage