The actual situation facing mankind due to the new Coronavirus is pushing researchers to develop new technologies that involve physical distancing for people, in many domains. But live goes on, and although some activities can be carried out online, there are some domains that require human presence. For example, analysis of environment, evaluating exposure to different toxicants to different ecosystems are some of the activities in the environment sector that need to be carried out involving human presence. This is why this paper will propose a system that limits human contact during hotel stay for scientists, researchers or tourists.
This paper proposes a combined Hotel Management System (HMS) that can replace the front desk activities of a hotel or different accommodation units. The special developed system provides self check-in capabilities using a QR (Quick Response) code. The code will be generated when the booking is made. Also, after the check-in, the users can access their rooms using the same unique QR code. The same code will also be used for entering the hotel facilities. This paper also brings an energy saving solution that is integrated in the HMS. The idea is to limit the waste of energy in the hotel room, but in such a manner that doesn’t affect the commodity of the tourist. For security issues the HMS will be equipped with a CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) system.
The system is based on Raspberry Pi processors that is integrated in a server application which is able to generate access codes for each room and to monitor the activities inside the hotel using the integrated cameras. The software for the HMS is based on Phyton language, customized for Linux operating system. It allows settings of cards, generation and transmission of QR codes for each accommodation to customers, room status monitoring, employee and customer access monitoring for any form of access such as QR Code, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) card, face-recognition, secure opening of remote doors, firmware updates for each black box, reboot actions etc.
Each door has an independent Raspberry Pi control unit (black box) which is connected via USB (Universal Serial Bus) to the video camera outside the room. The camera reads the QR code and if it is correct the server gives access to the door. With the camera the user also finds a LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screen that gives information about how to use the code and if the access is granted. In case of code problems, the system is developed with a back-up RFID access device controlled also by the Raspberry Pi. The same code generated to access the hotel room gives access to the main door of the accommodation unit. Figure 1 shows the architecture of the existing system.
The implemented system is now being tested in a hotel facility and as future steps in the current development could be the integration of facilities such as climate control, food cooling, windows control, lights control in the existing access control system.