FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL COMPUTER AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

ENGINEERING

EEEN 510 FINAL YEAR PROJECT 1

PROPOSAL REPORT

Design and Simulate an Automatic Toilet Flushing

System

Name: Karabo Kwata signature: k.kwata

Student ID: 19000963

Program: Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Supervisor: Dr. B. Mtengi signature:

Contents
CHAPTER 1 ........................................................................................................................................... 3
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 3
LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................................... 4
PROBLEM STATEMENT ..................................................................................................................... 6
AIM ......................................................................................................................................................... 6
OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER 2 ........................................................................................................................................... 7
BLOCK DIAGRAM ............................................................................................................................... 7
FLOW CHART ....................................................................................................................................... 8
PROJECT PLAN .................................................................................................................................... 9
GANTT CHART .................................................................................................................................. 10
MATERIAL LIST ................................................................................................................................ 10
EXPECTED OUTCOME ..................................................................................................................... 11
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................... 12
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
The project Development of a smart toilet for automatic flushing deals with automatic cleaning
of toilets without requiring any human assistance. Most of the public toilets are not clean due
to the irresponsible peoples who often forget to flush the toilet after using it and also as the
population of the world is increasing more of the water supplies have been used and
contaminated leaving less fresh water available. This makes it necessary to ensure that adequate
and sustainable water supplies can still be made available for this and future generations.
Presently here we are conserving some amount of water that is excessively wasted in public
toilets. As toilets in public places such as railways, bar, clubs, schools and railways require
automatic control of water source to reduce wastage of water which happens due to the user
negligence. Toilet flushing usually account for nearly one third of a building total water
consumption and this end use is one of the significant and lowest cost areas to target for
significant water and sewer savings. This manually operated flush can spread germs, bacteria
and many infectious diseases due of user flush on-off knob to contact b because of that many
peoples avoid to flush. It leads to dirty and unhygienic environment Government and private
sectors spends lots of money for the cleanliness and maintenance of the urinals. Therefore,
solve this type of problem we needs to develop. This can be achieved by replacing the older
model toilets using manual flush system, with the smart toilet flushing system that operates
automatically only whenever toilets required of flushing with adequate amount of water just
enough to clean them.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Design and Implementation of an Automatic Smart Urinal. [1] proposed A smart automatic
urinal flushing system. It is designed and implemented to provide the usage information to a
caretaker. With the smart system, a caretaker will be able to use the usage information to
estimate or to analyse the number of users in each day, or each week. It is also possible to know
which urinal has been used the most, so it should be taken care more than the other ones. The
proposed system is tested under different scenarios. The results show that in a normal
circumstance, the propose system is working as expected. B. Low Power Consumption [2]
proposed an automatic flusher that work on the mechanical linkage, eliminating the use of
sensors, programs and finally electricity. The present investigation is economical and operable
under all conditions throughout the year without any external driving power. [3] proposed an
auto flushing device with an ultralow power consumption. The key of the design in the system
is to reduce the standby power consumption. The system uses IR sensor to detect the present
of the user for 20ms for every 2 seconds. The system also uses boost regulator and limiter
circuit. The design shows that the device consumes 10mW for 24 hours when no user present.
Comparing to a typical auto flushing device design, other devices consumes from 0.5 to 1W of
power when no user present for one day. This means their solution can significantly save more
power consumption in the long run. D. Water Consumption Monitoring System. [4]
Implemented a wireless water consumption monitoring system. The system consists of a
wireless monitoring unit and a central server. In each wireless monitoring unit contains several
wireless data collectors, a wireless gateway and a WIFI router. Wireless data collectors send
the collected data to the wireless gateway using 433MHz communication channel. The gateway
is then conveyed receiving data to the WIFI router in order to send to the central server on the
internet. [5]Throughout the history, toilet has been an important part of human life. Toilets vary
from one land to the other from one century to the other. Many are used for hygiene now but
in ancient Roman public toilets were where people socialized as well. [6]Archaeological
excavations surfaced a lot of evidence on ancient cleaning habits and also on toilets. Slowly,
after the invention of toilets, people-built sewer, drainage systems, and water channels to
dispose of the waste and increase hygiene. [7]Throughout the history many civilizations find
ways to dispose of human waste. All these civilizations developed different methods. Cultural
differences, beliefs, necessities, hygiene shaped the toilet design. Thus, there have been many
different types of toilets around the world including flushed toilets and squat toilets.[8]In
Uganda, pit latrines are considered to be the standard for managing human excreta in rural
areas. While pit latrines are a significant improvement over alternatives such as open
defecation, they often provide a smelly, fly-infested environment that is uncomfortable,
potentially unsafe, and possibly harmful to the environment.[9] According to the most recent
Demographic and Health Survey, only 18.7% of the population use flush toilets and these are
majorly found in urban schools, restaurants, hospitals, supermarkets and in other public
buildings.[10] and therefore, it’s safe to say everyone is using public toilets during their daily
life. However, these facilities (water born toilets) have problems like poor sanitation and high
spread of UTIs which is contributed by dirty toilet seat and surfaces which disgust the users
.Some of the users who are germophobic leave without flushing which worsens the
situation.[11] Manual operation of the faucets leads to their damage when the users always turn
strongly to open or close the tap or flushing lever.[12]
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Public restrooms and toilet facilities often face issues of inadequate flushing, leading to
unhygienic conditions and water wastage. Traditional flush systems rely on manual activation,
which can result in inconsistent usage and an increased risk of contamination. To address these
problems, there is a need for an automatic water flushing system that can efficiently and
consistently flush toilets and urinals to maintain cleanliness and reduce water consumption.

AIM
The aim of this project is to design a system that automatically flushes toilet waste after use.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this project is to design a system that comprises of the following,

• Detection: A system that uses motion sensors to detect the presence of human user and
automatically flush the toilet after use.
• Monitoring and Display: To design a system that will monitor the water pressure, level
and display readings for user.
• Backup supply: To design an automatic switch to switch supply between the battery
which is used as a backup and main supply depending on availability of power.
• To design an automatic charger controller which will allow the main to supply the
battery with power when not full and automatically cut the supply when the battery is
fully charged.
• Programme a microcontroller to process the input data.
• Simulate and test the functionality of the system using Proteus software.
CHAPTER 2

BLOCK DIAGRAM

• Battery has an auto cut-off feature when it is fully charged

• The system will then control power source used.it can only switch to the battery only
when the main is interrupted.
• Interrupting switch is used to switch the system off and on when cleaning the toilets to
avoid the system from wasting water as it will be detecting movement of cleaners.
• Proximity sensor and water level sensor detect and send signals to the microcontroller
and it interpret the received data and send out signal
• LCD will display out of services message when there is no water or the pressure is low
for flushing
• Electrical activated valve will then flush if users movement is detected
FLOW CHART
PROJECT PLAN
The project plan for the first 7 weeks
GANTT CHART

MATERIAL LIST

• Microcontroller
• Proximity sensor
• Water level sensor
• LCD
• LED as electrical valve
• Toggle switch
• battery

Charger controller
 • resistors
• 1N4007
• BC547
• RELAY
• 2 LED GREEN AND RED
• 1N5408
• Capacitors
• Connecting wires
• Potentiometer

Control switch
• relay
• 1N4001 Diode

EXPECTED OUTCOME
The device must be able to flush toilets automatically after the user is done using the toilets
REFERENCES
[1] S. Premanandan, A. Ahmad, Å. Cajander, P. Ågerfalk, and L. van Gemert-Pijnen,
“Designing and Evaluating IT Applications for Informal Caregivers: Protocol for a Scoping
Review,” JMIR Res. Protoc., vol. 12, p. e47650, Jul. 2023, doi: 10.2196/47650.
[2] A. Lokman, R. K. Ramasamy, and C.-Y. Ting, “Scheduling and Predictive
Maintenance for Smart Toilet,” IEEE Access, vol. PP, pp. 1–1, Jan. 2023, doi:
10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3241942.
[3] M. D. P. Emilio, “Minimizing device standby power,” Embedded.com. Accessed: Oct.
06, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.embedded.com/minimizing-device-standby-
power/
[4] “ScienceDirect.” Accessed: Oct. 06, 2023. [Online]. Available:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
[5] “A History of Human Waste as Fertilizer - JSTOR Daily.” Accessed: Oct. 06, 2023.
[OnlineAvailable: https://daily.jstor.org/a-history-of-human-waste-as-fertilizer/
[6] “Diagnosing Faucet Leaks.” Accessed: Oct. 06, 2023. [Online]. Available:
https://www.timrauschplumbing.com/diagnosing-faucet-leaks
[7]A. R. A. (2015, August 25). DEVELOPMENT OF A HANDS FREE URINAL FLUSHING SYSTEM.
International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology, 04(08), 279–285.
https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0408048

[8] Brimicombe, M. (1999). Automatic toilet flush. Electronics Education, 1999(1), 21–25.
https://doi.org/10.1049/ee.1999.0015

[9] hong, C. Y. (2012, February). PLC Automatic Controlling System of Flushing Toilet.
https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.482-484.1816

[10]5129110 Selectable toilet-water-level flushing system. (1993, January). Environment

International, 19(4), I. https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-4120(93)90135-5

[11]Zhang, Z. N., Su, G., Ge, G. L., Zhao, G. Y., & Wu, Z. Y. (1996, November). Rural sanitary
domestic flushing toilet system. Water Research, 30(11), 2826–2829.
https://doi.org/10.1016/s0043-1354(96)00186-8

[12]Blais, B. S. (2011, February 17). Automatic Flushing Toilets: An Entertaining Platform for
Exploring Scientific Thinking. The Physics Teacher, 49(3), 162–164.
https://doi.org/10.1119/1.355550