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Experimental Validation of DTMF Decoder Electronic Circuit to be Used for

Remote Controlling of an Agricultural Pump System

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Proceedings of the International Conference on Electrical and Bio-medical Engineering, Clean Energy and Green Computing, Dubai, UAE, 2015

Experimental Validation of DTMF Decoder Electronic Circuit to be Used for

Remote Controlling of an Agricultural Pump System

Hussain A. Attia, Beza Negash Getu, Nasser Hamad

Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering
American University of Ras Al Khaimah
Ras Al Khaimah, UAE
hattia@aurak.ae, bgetu@aurak.ae, nasser.hamad@aurak.ae

ABSTRACT In [8], the use of DTMF signaling for remote

This work investigates the implementation and
experimental analysis of practical DTMF decoder
electronic circuit that can be used for remote
controlling of agricultural pump system or other
applications. A DTMF tone command sent from a
transmitting fixed or mobile phone station will be
decoded by the electronic circuit at the receiving
phone station and accordingly the command signal
will be interpreted and then be used to SWITCH
ON/OFF selected or several motors that are used to
pump water for agricultural fields. The paper
presents the experimental work and analysis results
of the different stages of the design confirming our
previous simulation work using the NI-Multism
program. The results of the simulation and the
experimental work show that the electronic design is
capable of controlling the switching state of the
pumping motors.
KEYWORDS
DTMF, Touch-Tone, Remote Control, Op-Amps,
Bandpass Filters
controlling of agricultural pumps was studied in
detail. A complete electronic design and
MULTISIM simulation was presented. The
results of different stages of the simulation
showed the capability of the system for
controlling the switching states of the water
pumping motors used for the irrigation at a
remotely located agricultural site. A farmer who
controls the irrigation of an agriculture site
remotely will press the keypad of the telephone
handset and can switch on or off water pumps
located at the different locations of the site.
Depending on the requirement, one or several
pumps that are available in the agricultural site
can be switched on/off at the same time or at
different times. A DTMF decoder and
controlling logic circuit are designed to control
high power pumps by issuing commands
encoded as audio DTMF signals. The DTMF
decoder and controlling circuit receives those
remote commands and controls the switching
states of the connected motor pump system.

1 INTRODUCTION
In recent years, there is a widespread use of
telephone signals of fixed phone, mobile phone
and wireless devices for remote controlling
applications such as house and property security
surveillance system, theft control and monitoring
systems, remote motor speed control, remote
real-time industrial process control &
monitoring, remote door locking system, remote
controlling of electrical apparatus in offices and
homes, remote operation of robotic systems,
remote vehicular security systems, remote
switching systems and other relevant
applications, [1], [2]. More specifically, the use
of Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF)
technique is becoming predominant in various
remote controlling applications [3]-[7].
2 SYSTEM MODEL
From the purpose of the proposed system, it is
obvious that we need a transmitter phone (fixed
or mobile), a receiver phone (fixed or mobile),
DTMF decoder and Logic Controller, which
could be a microcontroller and a motor drive
circuit used for switching the motor pumps.
Figure 1 shows the general block diagram of the
receiving end showing the different parts of the
system.
At the transmitter, the farmer or any other
assigned user will send the DTMF control signal
by first dialing the receiver mobile or fixed
phone. After the answering mode is completed,
the user will send an appropriate DTMF tone
command to switch on/off one or several of the
motor pumps. The received DTMF tone

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Proceedings of the International Conference on Electrical and Bio-medical Engineering, Clean Energy and Green Computing, Dubai, UAE, 2015
command will be decoded by an appropriate
DTMF decoder circuit. In this work, we
designed an analogue filter to decode the DTMF
tones using easily available passive and active
electronic components. After the decoding of the
tones, a logic controller is designed to identify
the exact transmitted phone digit corresponding
to the transmitted DTMF tone. A motor driving
circuit corresponding to the transmitted digit will
be enabled and the driving circuit will switch
on/off one or several of the motor pumps
according to the design specifications. In this
work, we continue the work presented in [8] and
conform the MULTISIM theoretical simulation
results with the experimental results as presented
in the subsequent section of this paper.
Logic controller
DTMF circuit or
Decoder Microcontroller
Receiver
phone
Motor drive Motor
circuit
Pumps
(Relay)
Figure 1. System block diagram of DTMF based
motor pump controller
3 DTMF SIGNAL AND DECODER
Each digit of the telephone keypad is represented
by two simultaneous tones selected from a set of
frequencies. One set of frequencies consists the
low frequencies (697 Hz, 770 Hz, 852 Hz, 941
Hz) and the second set consists of the high
frequencies (1209 Hz, 1336 Hz, 1477 Hz, 1633
Hz) as shown in Figure 2. Each time when we
press a digit or symbol on the phone keypad, a
sinusoid signal, which is a sum of the lower
frequency (fL) and the higher frequency (fH) is
generated. Therefore, the DTMF tone signal
generated corresponding to a certain pressed
digit on the keypad is given by:
x(t )  A sin(2f Lt )  B sin(2f H t )
where A & B are the amplitude of the each
frequency sinusoid. The discrete time version of
ISBN: 978-1-941968-06-2 ©2015 SDIWC
the signal in (1) can be determined if we sample
the signal and replace t with t = nTs where the
sampling time Ts is the reciprocal of the
sampling frequency Fs. Fs is often taken as 8000
Hz, which is the sampling frequency of voice
signals.
1209 Hz 1336 Hz 1477 Hz 1633 Hz
697 Hz 1 2 3 A
770 Hz 4 5 6 B
852 Hz 7 8 9 C
941 Hz * 0 # D
Figure 2. The DTMF tones generated from a Phone
Keypad
The transmitted DTMF tone from a transmitting
phone station is received at the receiving station
and be identified by a suitable DTMF decoder
circuit. In this and our previous work, we
focused on the implementation of the DTMF
decoder using analog electronic circuits. In the
sequel, we give the designed circuit of each
stages supported by experimental test and results
for the different stages of the overall proposed
design.
A. DTMF Tone Generator
From (1), the DTMF tone signal is the sum of
two sinusoid frequencies. For the experimental
work, we designed an op-amp adder circuit that
produces the sum of the two sinusoid signals at
the output of the op-amp. The two inputs of the
adder circuit are supplied from two function
generators, one supplying a sinusoidal voltage at
the lower frequency fL, and the second supplying
a sinusoidal voltage at the higher frequency fH.
Figure 3 shows the circuit diagram of a non-
inverting summer op-amp circuit [9]. The circuit
generates the DTMF tone when the digit “0” is
pressed on the keypad of the telephone. The two
generator sources produce sinusoidal voltages of
941 Hz and 1336 Hz. Let the sinusoidal voltage
at 941 Hz and 1136 Hz as V941(t) and V1336(t)
(1) respectively, the output voltage of the summer
op-amp (with R1 = R2 = R14= R23) will be
V0(t)= V941 (t)+ V1336 (t). Figure 4 shows the
resultant signal at the output of the non-inverting
53
Proceedings of the International Conference on Electrical and Bio-medical Engineering, Clean Energy and Green Computing, Dubai, UAE, 2015

amplifier. As can be evident from the Figure, the parameters are selected to have resonance or
resultant amplitude (Channel 2 of Oscilloscope) maximum gain at a frequency of 1477 Hz, which
will be nearly twice of the individual amplitudes is one of the eight DTMF frequencies. We will
when the two signals are in-phase or summed have eight fourth order bandpass filters
constructively and the resultant magnitude will corresponding to the eight DTMF frequencies.
be very small near to zero when they are out of The values of the components for Figure 5 are
phase or summed destructively. determined for bandwidth, B = 100 Hz (quality
factor, Q =100/941), C11 = C12 =C13 = C14 =
-Vcc Vcc
C =100 nF and overall gain of Am =2. We used
15 V 15 V B = 100 Hz for the higher frequency DTMF
R1 4 "Digit 0 tone " frequencies (941 Hz, 1209 Hz, 1336, 1477 Hz)
3
1 Vpk 10k
LM324AJ U5A 1
V0 and a bandwidth of B = 60 Hz for the low
V941 941 Hz
0°
2
frequencies (697 Hz, 770 Hz, 852 Hz). Several
R2 R14 11
10k R23 simulation trials have been done for different
10k
1 Vpk 10k bandwidth specifications, selection of a higher
1336 Hz
V1336
0° bandwidth for the higher frequencies will
provide a stable result compared with using the
same bandwidth specifications for all DTMF
Figure 3. DTMF Tone Generating Circuit
frequencies. This is because the bandwidth has
to be increased to get a comparable quality
factor for the higher frequencies compared with
the lower DTMF frequencies.
C12 C14
Vcc
15 V R30
100nF R12 100nF
43.96k
46.12k
4
4 12
LM324AJ
10 R13 C13 U9D 14

8 13
R11 C11 U4C Vbp(t)
10.99k
9 11
LM324AJ 100nF
R10
11.53k 100nF 11 R31
26
25
Vcc
15 V

Figure 5. Fourth order multiple feedback topology active

bandpass filter (component values are for mid or center
frequency, fm =1477 Hz).

Figure 4. DTMF tone corresponding to the digit “0” at the

output of the non-inverting summer shown in Fig. 3,
Channel 1 of Oscilloscope (CH1, Yellow color-1336 Hz)
and Channel 2 of Oscilloscope (CH2, Blue color- 941 Hz
+ 1336 Hz).

B. Four-Pole Active Bandpass Filter

The next step after generating the DTMF tone

signals is to design a DTMF decoder circuit that
is able to identify the individual DTMF tone
signals. We used a four-pole active band pass
filter based on the multiple feedback topology
and the four-pole bandpass filter can be designed
from a cascade or series connection of two
identical two-pole multiple feedback topologies.
Figure 6. Output of the bandppass filter of center
The capacitor and resistance values can be frequency fm =1477 Hz for DTMF tone input signal
determined using the design steps as mentioned corresponding to digit 3 (yellow color:- input signal of 697
in [10]. Figure 5 shows a fourth order Hz + 1477 Hz & blue color:- output signal of 1477 Hz).
Butterworth active bandpass filter where the

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Proceedings of the International Conference on Electrical and Bio-medical Engineering, Clean Energy and Green Computing, Dubai, UAE, 2015

Figure 6 shows the output of the active bandpass

filter shown in Figure 5 when the DTMF signal
for digit “3” is passed through the bandpass filter
(yellow-colored graph), which has a center
frequency fm = 1477 Hz. It clearly shows that
the circuit filters the input DTMF tone
corresponding to the digit “3” and produces the
sinusoid signal of frequency 1477 Hz at its
output (blue-colored graph). Similarly, Figure 7
shows the output of the active bandpass filter
designed for a center frequency of fm = 697 Hz
when the DTMF signal for digit “3” is an input
signal to the filter. It clearly shows that the
circuit filters the input DTMF tone Figure 8. Output of the bandpass filter of center frequency
corresponding to the digit “3” and produces the fm =1477 Hz for DTMF tone input signal corresponding
sinusoid signal of frequency 697 Hz at its output to digit 7 (yellow color:- input signal 852 Hz + 1209 Hz &
(blue-colored graph). Therefore, the two active blue color:- output signal of the filter).
bandpass filters (center frequency fm =697 Hz
C. The Comparator, Integrator and Buffer
and fm =1477 Hz) together are used to recognize
Circuit
or decode that the dialed digit is “digit 3”.
The active filter circuit designed as shown in
Figure 5 attenuates other DTMF frequencies that
are different from the center or the resonance
frequency and therefore there will be very small
amplitude signal at the output for the frequencies
different from the resonant frequency. For
instance, if the digit “3” is pressed, only the
active bandpass filter with the parameters as
shown in in Figure 5. produces a high amplitude
signal at its output compared with the output of
the filters designed for the other DTMF
frequencies. For this reason, we designed a
comparator circuit following the bandpass filter
and then an RC integrator circuit and buffer to
produce HIGH voltage (+15 V) for the DTMF
Figure 7. Output of the bandppass filter of center frequencies corresponding to the pressed digit
frequency fm =697 Hz for DTMF tone input signal and a LOW voltage (0 V) for the other filters.
corresponding to digit 3 (yellow color:- input signal 697 Figure 9. shows the comparator circuit, followed
Hz + 1477 Hz & blue color:- output signal of 697 Hz).
by the integrator RC circuit, buffer logic gate
(U24D) and at the end a 15 Volt indicator lamp
The accuracy of the bandpass filters can be
(X3) for indicating the detection of the DTMF
studied by looking the output of the filters when
frequency.
a DTMF tone signal different from the center
The potentiometer is set for a reference voltage
frequency of the bandpass filter is an input to the
of approximately 0.15 V and the comparator
filter. For example, Figure 8 shows the output of
gives an output voltage of 15 V (HIGH) when
the bandpass filter with center frequency fm
the output of the bandpass filer is above 0.15 V
=1477 Hz when an input DTMF tone signal
and an output voltage of -15V (LOW) when the
corresponding to digit 7 (852 Hz + 1209 Hz) is
bandpass output voltage is less than the 0.15 V.
an input to the filter. Clearly, the output signal
The output of the comparator will be a square
(blue color) is significantly attenuated by the
wave. Fig. 10 shows the output voltage (close to
filter and hence weak amplitude, which is unable
15 V) of the RC integrator circuit output after
to make the comparator output high: the next
detecting the 1477 Hz DTMF frequency.
stage of the decoder circuit.

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Proceedings of the International Conference on Electrical and Bio-medical Engineering, Clean Energy and Green Computing, Dubai, UAE, 2015

corresponding to digit 7 (852 Hz+1209 Hz) is an

Vcc
15 V
1477 Hz
input to the filter. Clearly, the signal is nearly
X3 15 V zero amplitude showing that the DTMF
V (t)
bp 5
4 1N4007GP
D3 U24D
frequencies corresponding to digit 7 are no more
recognized (don‟t pass through) by the bandpass
33R
R
32 LM324AJ U10B 7
C
15 R
34
100k 6 1k
Key=D 11
100nF
100k
4050BT_15V
filter of center frequency 1477 Hz. This shows a
1%
V cc
15 V
particular bandpass filter, comparator and
integrator circuit assembly is tuned for
recognizing a particular DTMF frequency and
hence clearly showing the strength of the overall
Figure 9. A comparator, integrator and buffer circuit decoder circuit.

Figure 10. Integrator circuit output signal after the

Figure 11. Integrator circuit output signal after the
bandpass filter of center frequency fm =1477 Hz for
bandpass filter of center frequency fm =1477 Hz for
DTMF tone input signal corresponding to digit 3, (blue
DTMF tone input signal corresponding to digit 7 (input
color:- integrator output signal& yellow color:- output
DTMF tone= 852 Hz+1209 Hz), (blue color:- integrator
signal of buffer).
output signal& yellow color:- output signal of buffer).

The output of the buffer (U24D) will be HIGH Table 1. shows the list of the components used
(15 V) if a DTMF frequency is detected and for the DTMF decoder circuit.
LOW (0 V) if a DTMF frequency isn‟t detected.
For example, the output of the buffer shown in Table 1. List of components used to build each of DTMF
tone generators, four-pole active bandpass filter, and
Figure 9 will be 15 V for the integrator input comparator-integrator-buffer circuit
signal shown in Figure 10, which means
recognition of the tone corresponding to 1477 Circuits Type of components Quantity of
components
Hz. In other words, when digit “3” is pressed on
the telephone keypad and transmitted from the DTMF Tone Op-AMp 1
Generator
DTMF transmitter, only the buffer logic gates Resistors 4
corresponding to 697 Hz and 1477 Hz bandpass Four-Pole Op-Amp 2
filters are HIGH (logic 1) and all other buffer Active
outputs are LOW (logic zero). In this way, all Multi turn Variable 6
Bandpass
Resistors
the low and high DTMF frequencies are Filter
recognized and hence any dialed digit can be Capacitors 4
decoded by the joint function of the bandpass Comparator- Op-Amp 1
filters, comparators, integrator and logic gate Integrator-
Variable Resistor 1
circuits corresponding to its own DTMF Buffer
frequencies. Circuit Resistors 2
Capacitor 1
For comparison purposes, Figure 11 shows the
output of the comparator and integrator circuit Diode 1
after the bandpass filter with center frequency Buffer 1
fm = 1477 Hz when the DTMF tone signal

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Proceedings of the International Conference on Electrical and Bio-medical Engineering, Clean Energy and Green Computing, Dubai, UAE, 2015
D. LOGIC CONTROLLER CIRCUIT
In the above experimental work and analysis, we
have shown the possibility of complete detection
and recognition of the DTMF frequencies using
the designed DTMF decoder circuit. We get a
“logic 1” if a DTMF frequency is recognized
and a “logic 0” if a DTMF frequency isn‟t
detected or recognized by the decoder electronic
circuit. The logic controller controls the four
motor pumps assumed to be located in four
different locations in a certain agricultural site.
When “digit 1” is pressed or the DTMF tone
corresponding to the digit is transmitted, all four
motors will be functional (ALL SWITCHED
ON). When “digit 0” is pressed, all four motor
pumps will stop working (ALL SWITCHED
OFF). When digit 2, digit 3, digit 4 and digit 5
are pressed, Motor-one, Motor-two, Motor-three
and Motor-four respectively are separately
activated (SWITCHED ON) and start working.
When digit 6, digit 7, digit 8 and digit 9 are
pressed, Motor-one, Motor- two, Motor- three
and Motor-four respectively are separately de-
activated (SWITCHED OFF) and stop working.
When a particular motor is switched on, it
remains in switched on state unless it is switched
off by a transmitted switched off command and
vice versa. Therefore, there is a need for tracking
the state of the motor and hence a requirement
not only a combinational but also a sequential
circuit. The sequential switching states of the
motors are controlled by the JK flip flops and the
detail design and analysis for logic controller
circuit can be referred in the simulation work as
presented in [8].
CONCLUSTION
This paper investigates the experimental analysis
and validation of an electronic circuit designed
for controlling remotely located agricultural
motor pumps based on the DTMF signaling
technique. This experimental work is an
extension of the theoretical design and
MULTISIM simulation of the different stages of
the proposed system as presented in [8]. The
DTMF decoder is designed from discrete
electronic components and the functionality of
the overall circuit is tested using the NI-
MULTSIM simulation previously and
experimentally in the present work. Full motor
switching state control is achieved using the
ISBN: 978-1-941968-06-2 ©2015 SDIWC
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designed circuit. This proposed electronic design
can be used for remotely controlling motor
pumps used for agricultural site without
requiring the physical presence of the farmer or
the user at the site. As a result, the use of the
system achieves proper water management,
saves time, human power, resources and related
costs required for not using a remote control
system. The system and the technique can be
adopted and used for remotely controlling any
home or industrial applications.
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