Smart Control and Monitoring System for Switchyard Floodlight Towers with Fault Detection

Switchyard floodlight towers are very important for the operation of electrical substations at night. However, the conventional switchyard lighting system has limitations in energy wastage and fault detection due to the lack of automation and monitoring capabilities in the existing switchyard lighting system. This paper proposes the design and implementation of the Smart Control and Monitoring System for the Switchyard Floodlight Towers using the IoT-based ESP32 architecture. This system is able to switch the floodlights ON during low ambient light conditions and OFF during the daytime using the BH1750 digital light sensor. Moreover, the lamp status is monitored in real-time using the cloud integration (Blynk IoT platform), which is remotely monitored from the control room. Additionally, the fault detection of the individual lamp is achieved using the ACS712 current sensors, which analyze the AC signal swing characteristics to achieve fault detection. This system is validated using the four-lamp tower and is accurate in automation and fault detection capabilities.