Microcontroller-Based Security Systems for Restricted Buildings: A Review of Existing Approaches and Research Gaps.

Abstract

The protection of restricted buildings is important because unauthorized access, intrusion, theft, and other security threats can compromise property, information, and human safety. Traditional security approaches often depend on physical guards or single authentication mechanisms, which may provide limited coverage and may not support rapid detection and notification of security incidents. This paper reviews recent microcontroller-based and Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled security systems, with emphasis on access control, intrusion detection, vehicle identification, monitoring, communication, and simulation. A systematic search was carried out across major academic databases and indexing platforms, including IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, and Google Scholar for studies published between 2016 to 2026 to identify relevant studies and ensure broad coverage of the existing literature. The search initially identified 145 publications. After title screening, 43 studies were retained for further assessment, and 17 studies were selected for detailed analysis following abstract and full-text screening. The selected studies were compared according to their major security functions, technologies, limitations, cost and research gaps. The review shows that Radio frequency identification (RFID), biometric authentication, sensors, License Plate Recognition (LPR), computer vision, IoT, cloud and fog computing have been applied to address different security requirements. However, the reviewed systems generally concentrate on specific security functions rather than integrating access control, intrusion detection, vehicle identification, monitoring, and notification within a single platform. The review therefore identifies an opportunity for an integrated microcontroller-based security system for restricted buildings and provides a basis for its proposed design and simulation.