Face Recognition Based Multifunction Smart Mailbox

The abundance and variety of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications in the recent couple of years has reach a new record. From smart home, smart traffic, smart city, to industry, logistics and agriculture IoT applications are penetrating in every facet of our life and our society. A lot of simple and more complicated solutions benefit from the flexibility and diversity of connections that this new technology provides. In order to provide better management, better visualization, increase scale and reduce response times logistics and warehouse management are embracing new ways to improve upon the already “old” RFID technology. In this sense IoT provides an unprecedented technology to meet all these requirements in a uniform and easy to manage way. In this work a specific smart application - IoT mailbox with face recognition is discussed. Combining cellular connectivity with image processing it ensures the user that his valuable documents will be securely delivered. The developed prototype consists of a fingerprint reader, a camera, electromagnetic lock, a small LCD screen, a microphone and a loudspeaker all connected to an Arduino Uno which processes the data and establishes the network connectivity through a GSM module. Additionally, to perform face detection and recognition based on a prerecorded image set the camera is connected to Raspberry Pi and OpenCV and Python software is employed. The remotely controlled electromagnetic lock ensures that shipments are kept protected until the designated receiver takes possession of them.