Measurement 139 (2019) 34–39

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Measurement
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement

A keyless Entry System based on Arduino board with Wi-Fi technology

Marwa F. Areed
Engineering Faculty, Damietta University, Damietta, Egypt

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Controlling door access is an important aspect regarding real-life problems. The problem arises when
Received 19 November 2017 there is a difficulty to access a certain facility, especially when keys are not available.
Received in revised form 8 February 2019 This is paper proposes a keyless Entry System that focus on using Arduino circuit board together with a
Accepted 13 February 2019
Wi-Fi module and php language in order to grant access to a locked door.
Available online 1 March 2019
The main goal of this work is to combine both software and hardware to solve real-life problems like
the one this paper focusing on. The second goal is to explore which services can be obtained when such
Keywords:
systems applied on the ground. Finally, to gain knowledge regarding basic Electrical Engineering concepts
Entry System
Arduino
with respect to circuit boards and hardware implementation.
Wi-Fi A prototype of the suggested system and a web site were created for system user to have a control over
Web Programming his room door to lock or unlock it remontely.
PHP The created prototype of the proposed system shows that the introduced one will be helpful for those
who are concerned with such problems will make life much easier by applying it.
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction computers. The Arduino provides an Integrated Development Envi-

Technology has the benefit of making our life easier to be han-
dlee. All of us depend on it in so many tasks. Due to the nature of
the human brain, things can be forgotten very easily, due to the
stress or any other factors, so for the workers the common problem
is forgetting bring the keys of the office, especially if he/she got up
late and he/she was in a hurry to catch the bus or whatever, so he/
she can possibly forget things. Other common problem for a
worker is when he/she is away from his/her office, and a faculty
member wants some papers from that office, suppose that there
is only one copy of the key which the owner has.
Many communication and boards technologies have been used
in different systems for unlocking the door without a key. Commu-
nication technologies include Radio Frequency Identification Sys-
tem (RFID) [1–3], Bluetooth [4], Near Field Communication (NFC)
[5], and Wi-Fi [6]. Boards technologies such as BeagleBoards, Rasp-
berry Pi and Arduino [7].
Arduino is a hardware that is easy to use, open source and
widely known for students, programmers and professionals. The
Arduino mainly based on micro controller board designs that man-
ufactured by an Italian company called Smart Projects and many
other companies. Using either 8-bit Atmel AVR micro controller
or 32-bit Atmel ARM processors [8]. The Arduino consists of several
digital and analog I/O pins which can be integrated with any mod-
ule. Serial communication interfaces are used for the boards, and
some models have USB in order to load programs from personal
ronment (IDE) in order to program the micro controllers, which
supports various programming languages such as C, C++ and Java.
Arduino products have various kinds of Microcontrollers, for
example: ATtiny85 is a microcontroller that is used by Arduino
Gemma, ATmega32U4 is used by both Arduino/Genuino MICRO
and Arduino Yún, ATmega328P is used by both Arduino/Genuino
UNO and Arduino Pro, and Arduino Due is using AT91SAM3X8E [9].
The whole Arduino products can be programmed via Arduino
Software which is available for free downloading from the com-
pany official website www.arduino.cc.
The organization of this work will be as follows: Section 2 pre-
sents the related work of the proposed system while Section 3 pre-
sents the proposed system. The implementation work and code
samples are presented in Sections 4 and 5, respectively. Finally,
the research is concluded in in Section 6.
2. Related work
The modern life generally relies on the technology develop-
ment, such as unlocking the doors, controlling the air condition,
and curtains controlling, all those can be done remotely. There
exist indefinite numbers of systems that aim to open the door
without a key. In this section some of these systems will be
mentioned.
In [10] presents android application which communicates via
Bluetooth with a keyless entry system. The main function of the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2019.02.028
0263-2241/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M.F. Areed / Measurement 139 (2019) 34–39 35

system to allow a user to lock or unlock a door with a specific

range. The system also allows the user to show the door’s status,
whether it is locked or unlocked.
Also the introduced system in [11] is concerned with unlocking
the door by using NFC and Android application. The goal of the sys-
tem is developing a smart door lock system which enable the
administrator or the owner of the apartment to control and send
to the other person in order to let him/her access the apartment
or an office.
While system in [12] is developed to lock and unlock the door
by using an Android application in mobile or laptop and wireless
LAN from anywhere inside home or around the building. The tech-
nology used is Servo Motor, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b/g/n), and Arduino
board.
In Addition to system introduced in [13] that developed for
unlocking the door with a specific range, it aims to help disabled
people controlling their home’s doors by using android mobile
and not to rely on physical keys which could be hard to manage
by disabled people. The system relies on Bluetooth technology to
establish a communication between user’s smartphone and the
Arduino board.
Furthermore, the system mentioned in [14] is based on the Fig. 1. Propsed system steps.
wireless technology to identify people through facial recognition.
The owner can identify people by taking a picture and send it via
E-mail or SMS, then control access to the door through the web e. Unlock the door: Once he/she choose to unlock the door,
page. The system is based on wireless network technology and he/she must enter his/her door’s password. As the board
image processing by Principal Component Analysis. receives the signal, the door will be unlocked.
From the above survey the proposed system will have some fea- f. Lock: Once he/she choose to lock the door, as the board
tures like: using an Arduino board, Web application and wireless receives the signal, the door will be locked.
connection. Basically, the system will grant a keyless entry to dif-
ferent kinds of facilities by utilizing an internet access and a Web 4. System design
browser, the user can unlock the door from any location, without
the need for his/her physical existence at the same door area. In this section the use case diagram and class diagram of the
So the proposed system will establish a communication proposed system will be introduced discussed in details. Also the
between the web browser and the Arduino circuit board through tools & languages used to implement the proposed system will
basic internet connection. Each user will be able to control either be mentioned.
one door or multiple doors depending on his/her accessibility in
a certain facility. In order to provide security, whenever a faculty 4.1. Use case diagram
member changes his/her office, the system will automatically set
a new password for that office. In addition, there will be an admin Fig. 2 shows the use case diagram of the Keyless Entry System
who has an access to the whole system enteries. The Arduino UNO The Figure has two actors and four basic interactions.
is best suited, since its characteristics like cost, memory size and The first actor is the Authorized users: Administrators and the
the clock speed support small systems much better than other second actor is Normal users: Faculty members. The use case can
brands of circuit boards [15]. Also Wi-Fi is the best suited technol- be divided into two cases one for each actor.
ogy for the proposed system because the system will not be
imposed by a specific range to unlock the door [16]. 4.1.1. Faculty member use case
In a faculty member use case include:
3. Proposed system
 Control door: where the user can lock or unlock the door:
In this section, the proposed system that helps open the door in o Unlock door: Any faculty member can open his/her door by
a keyless way through an internet connection using an Arduino entering the door’s password. If a faculty member is firstly
Uno board and a Wi-Fi shield will be introduced. The internet con- use the system, the administrator will send to him/her an
nection gives the system an advantage of opening the door from E-mail containing login information like ID and his/her pass-
any location without any limitation in range as the conventional word along with the door’s password for unlock the door.
systems do. The steps would be as follows (see Fig. 1): o lock door: Any faculty member can close his/her door by
clicking the button for closing the door only. If a faculty
a. Register: The administrator must register the faculty mem- member uses the system for the first time, the administrator
bers’ information and doors’ information into the database. will send him/her an E-mail containing login information as
b. Assign rooms to the members: The administrator assigns ID and password along with the door’s password for lock/
each member to a specific room. unlock feature.
c. Information: Each member has his/her ID and password to  Manage account: where the user can display or update his/her
login to the system, also he/she must be given a password information by:
for his/her related door. o Display faculty member’s information: Display all faculty
d. Login: Once the member logged in, he/she can either unlock member’s information such as ID, Name, E-mail, . . .etc.
the door or update his/her information. o Update information: The user can update his/her contact
information, and his/her password.
36 M.F. Areed / Measurement 139 (2019) 34–39

Table 1
Hardware tools need for the proposed system.

Icon Hardware Description Use

Ardunio ‘‘A microcontroller Programming the
UNO board based on the board and connect it
ATmega328P. It has to control its door
14 digital input/
output pins (6 analog
inputs, a 16 MHz
quartz crystal, a USB
connection, a power
jack, an ICSP header
and a reset button)
Wi-Fi The board is plugged Integrated to the
Shield into the Arduino, so it Arduino board for Wi-
can pick up a Wi-Fi Fi signal reception
signal
Door 12-Volt DCElectric Door can be unlocked/
Strike Door Strike locked with a key or
automatically by the
system
Power 12 V Output Transformer for 12v
Supply Switching Power to use in control door
Supply strike
Relay support for high-level Relays use an
triggered 5 V electromagnet to
mechanically operate
a switch
Transistor is a semiconductor A transistor used to
device switch or amplify
electrical power and
electronic signals
Resistor is a passive two- Resistors act to lower
terminal electrical voltage levels within
component circuits and
simultaneously act to
Fig. 2. Use case diagram. reduce current flow
Diode is a two-terminal A diode is to allow an
electronic component electric current to
that behaves in one pass in one direction,
4.1.2. Administrator use case direction while blocking
While the administrator use case include: current in the reverse
direction
Cable An electrical cable is Connected to two
 Manage user’s account: where the administrator can update
made of two or more devices, enabling the
faculty member information by: wires running side by transfer of electrical
o Add a new faculty member: Add information of a new fac- side, twisted, or signals between them
ulty member in the department. braided together to
o Delete old faculty member: Delete information of an old form a single
assembly
faculty member who is leaving the department.
o Change faculty member’s room: To change faculty mem-
ber’s room to another one.
o Display faculty member’s information: Display all faculty Table 2
member’s information such as ID, Name, E-mail, . . .etc. Software tools needed for the proposed system.
 Manage door details: The administrator can update the door’s Icon Software Description Use
information by:
Mamp Is an abbreviation of My Managing the
o Add a new door: Adding a new door by entering its number Apache - MySQL – PHP, Its website at the local
and password. use to manage the website server
o Delete an old door: Delete the information regard a door locally
that does not belong to the department any more. Sublime Is an editor for web Designing the
development, it supports system web page
o Change door password: If a faculty member changes his/her
PHP, Html5, CSS3 and others
room to another one, the administrator must change the
password for that particular room to provide more security. Processing ‘‘Is an open source language/ Connect computers
 Display door status: Display all door’s status, whether it’s development tool for writing with the Arduino
programs in other
locked or unlocked. computers”
Arduino Makes it easy to write the To write the code
4.2. Tools & languages Software code and upload it on the and upload it on
(IDE) board the Arduino board

Tables 1 and 2 show the tools used and the purpose of their
usage through the implementation of the proposed system.
Additionally, there are three other electric component that are
used to help in implementing the proposed system. Also the sche-
matic circuit of the system is shown in Fig. 3.
a. Breadboard: A breadboard is a construction base for proto-
typing of electronics. It is utilized to create temporary proto-
types and experimenting with circuit design.
 M.F. Areed / Measurement 139 (2019) 34–39 37

System Home Page Faculty member open

door page

Fig. 3. Tools to help us implementation the system (a) breadboard (b) LED (c)
buzzer.

b. LED: A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source.

Which emits light when activated. it is used to indicate two
functions; the blue light when the Arduino check the data in
the file; the red light to ensure that the Arduino transfer 5 V
to the relay.
c. Buzzer or Beeper: is an audio signaling device. it signals
when 12v transfer strikes (Fig. 4).
Faculty member options Faculty member open
page door page
4.3. System interface

In this section some of the proposed system screens will be

showed as shown in Fig. 5.

Faculty member Manage Admin options page

User Account page

Manage Use rAccount page Manage Door Details

page

Fig. 5. Some of proposed system screens.

5. Sample of application code

This section will clarify sample code of the project. It has two
main functions which are the Arduino C code, and the PHP code
of unlocking/locking the door.

5.1. Arduino code

It is the main code of the Arduino, which written in C. The first

Fig. 4. Schematic of the proposed system circuit. segment of the code for the Wi-Fi configuration and the second
38 M.F. Areed / Measurement 139 (2019) 34–39

segment for the HTTP is the request for the text file that contains
the data to unlock the door. The two segments are shown in Figs. 6
and 7.

5.2. Function of unlock and lock door

It is the PHP code that handles the data to be sent to the text file
and is shown in Figs. 8 and 9 that enables the user to unlock or lock
the door.

5.3. System evaluation

The proposed system was tested by creating a prototype con-

sists of 12-Volt DC-Electric door with an ardunio board and other

Fig. 7. Arduino code (b).

Fig. 8. Door Unlock code.

tools described in Section 4.2 above. Also a web site was created
by php which have interfaces for system users also described
above in Section 4.3, System user is able to login first and then to
lock or unlock the door of his room remontly. This evaluation
Fig. 6. Arduino code (a). shows the effectiveness of the proposed system in real life.
 M.F. Areed / Measurement 139 (2019) 34–39
Fig. 9. Door lock code.
6. Conclusion
Having difficulty in accessing buildings or offices remotely has
become a widespread problem as conventional keys can be easily
lost. For such problem, this research showed a practical solution
‘‘Keyless Entry System” for controlling the door access. The Keyless
Entry System is mainly based on the use of the Arduino circuit
board along with the Wi-Fi module in order to grant access to a
locked door. The proposed system showed the research methodol-
39
ogy in addition to multiple techniques that was proposed as a help-
ing tool to enhance the system.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to express her thanks to all the working
team at the taibah university. This research work is a part of a pro-
ject called ‘‘key less entry system”.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2019.02.028.
References
[1] X.L. Jia, Q.Y. Feng, C. Ma, An efficient anti-collision protocol for RFID tag
identification”, IEEE Commun. Lett. 14 (11) (2010) 1014–1016.
[2] K. Finkenzeller, RFID Handbook: Fundamentals and applications in contactless
smart cards, radio frequency identification and near-field communication, 3rd
ed., Wiley Ltd., New York, 2010.
[3] O. Bang, J.H. Choi, D. Lee, H. Lee, Efficient Novel Anti-collision Protocols for
Passive RFID Tags: Three Methods For Fast Tag Identification: Bi-slotted Tree
Based RFID Tag Anti-collision Protocols, Query Tree Based Reservation, and the
Combining Method of Them. Auto-ID Labs White Paper WP-HARDWARE-050,
MIT, USA, 2009.
[4] www.bluetooth.com. bluetooth. [Online] 2015.
[5] nfc forum. http://nfc-forum.org. [Online].
[6] http://classroom.synonym.com/advantages-disadvantages-wifi-17344.html.
synonym. [Online].
[7] http://www.bit-tech.net/. [Online].
[8] ‘‘Arduino - FAQ” .arduino.cc. dealextreme. [Online].
[9] arduino.cc. [Online].
[10] Josh Potts, Somsak Sukittanon, Exploiting bluetooth on android mobile devices
for home security application, IEEE (2012).
[11] K. Rafid, F. Haidara, Smart Door Lock, Kth Royal Institute of Technology, 2013.
[12] S. Sedhumadhavan, B. Saraladevi. Optimized Locking and Unlocking a System
Using Arduino. [Online] November 2014.
[13] N.H Ismail Zarina, N.N. Shamsuddin, Android-Based door lock for disabled
people, IEEE (2014) [Online].
[14] S. Sedhumadhavan, B. Saraladevi, Optimized locking and unlocking a system
using arduino [Online] Int. J. Innov. Res. Comput. Commun. Eng. (2014).
[15] http://blog.atmel.com). [Online].
[16] www.rutronik.com. [Online].