Smart Car Features using Embedded Systems and IoT
Abhishek Das, Vivek Dhuri, Aditya Desai, Suyash Ail, Ameya Kadam
SSmart Car Features using Embedded Systems and IoT
Abhishek Das Aditya Desai Vivek Dhuri Suyash Ail Ameya Kadam
1. Abstract
There has been a tremendous rise in technological advancesin the field of automobiles and autonomous vehicles. Withthe increase in the number of driven vehicles, the safetyconcerns with the same have also risen. The cases of acci-dents and life-threatening injuries have skyrocketed. It hasbecome a necessity to provide adequate safety measures inautomobiles. This project aims to develop a prototype for asmart vehicle system that provides real-time location of thevehicle on detection of a crash and alert the police stationand relatives of the user, it has a panic button feature for apassenger’s safety. We also demonstrate a mechanism forcabin monitoring and an interactive interface between a userand a car, where the user can inquire about the temperature,humidity, and other variables inside the car remotely bysending a text message to the GSM module which is presentin the car. The GSM module connects to the Arduino, whichfetches the readings from sensors attached to it and sendsit back to the user through a text message. We show theintegration of MQ3 Alcohol sensor with Arduino for drunkdriving prevention.
2. Introduction
Driver safety has been an important feature in automobilesthat have been made compulsion in various countries. Anincreasing number of amateur rash drivers, careless driving,and delayed access to first aid to victims has been a ma-jor cause of deaths. Cases of harassment, robbery in cabsare rising with more people using modern-day cab services.Driver fatigue monitoring, accident prevention measures,GPS-based location and nearest hospital alert, smart brak-ing systems, smart airbags, etc. are some of the featurescurrently implemented in a few of the high-end luxury-levelvehicles. There hasn’t been a cost-efficient model developedfor the low-end budget cars. It is important to provide ac-cessible safety measures in the vehicle to minimize the riskof loss of life. This project aims to develop a cost-efficientsmart vehicle system that can help aid the cause. Figure 1 UG. Student, Department of Electronics and Telecommunica-tion, DJSCE, Mumbai, India Assistant Professor, Department ofElectronics and Telecommunication, DJSCE, Mumbai, India.
Figure 1.
Block Diagram of Proposed Model shows the block diagram for our prototype.The primary objective of this project is to show how varioussensors can be integrated to the Arduino or any microcon-troller system, how to communicate with such a systemremotely using technologies like GSM and GPS technology,send commands to inquire about the sensor readings andperform desired actions by using the actuators connectedto the system. We have developed a low-cost prototype todemonstrate our ideas and create a baseline implementationfor research purposes in this relatively new domain of theInternet of Things. With the recent developments in thecapacity to process enormous amount of data from sensors,as well as communication technologies such as 5G, we be-lieve our ideas can be scaled and deployed in real-time. Thescripts have been made publicly available to the researchcommunity for further development here.In what follows, we discuss the related prior work for sucha problem in the next section (3), followed by defining theExperimental Setup (4) and discussing our novel approachesin section (5), followed with its results and discussion insection (6). Finally, we end the discussion with conclusionand future directions in the last section (7). a r X i v : . [ c s . H C ] J a n mart Car Features using Embedded Systems and IoT Figure 2.
GSM SIM 900A module
3. Related Work
According to a Statistical Report (ind, 2016) published bythe Department of Roads and Highways Transport on Vehi-cle Mishaps in the country in 2016, the country has recorded4,60,852 accidents in the year resulting in 1,45,685 deaths.Approximately 423 people died in 1,227 vehicle accidentsevery day. The data also states that at least 16 deaths occur-ring in vehicle mishaps out of 55 accidents in every hourin a particular period were primarily because victims wereunable to receive suitable treatment within time. Thus, if analert system is made and an alarm is raised, it might becomepossible to save many lives.There has been prior work in the area of using GSM and GPSsystems along with microcontrollers (Shinde et al., 2015)developed a similar tracking system using an EmbeddedLinux board namely Raspberry Pi and a GSM SIM900Amodule. The objective of their tracker was to raise an alertwhenever the vehicle deviated from the predefined routewhich was set in the Raspberry Pi by the user. It also hadfeatures for sending notifications when the vehicle exceededa set speed limit. (Saaid et al., 2014) implemented a vehiclelocation finder using a similar combination of GSM andGPS systems particularly for the task of vehicle thefts.The use of panic buttons in vehicles is a idea which hasn’tbeen deployed in real-life applications yet. According to thenewspaper article (hin, 2016), the Parliament of India willmake it compulsory from 1st of April 2018 for all publictransport vehicles which include buses and cabs to have alocation tracker device and one or more panic buttons toalert the authorities in case of an emergency. Although, thegovernment has not made the installation of cameras in thesevehicles mandatory, primarily citing privacy concerns anddue to the factor that it will generate tremendous amountsof data every second. The technology to process such huge
Figure 3.
Basic AT commands used with GSM module data sets is currently unavailable. However, with the devel-opment in Internet of Things, in the future, this might bepossible using Vehicle to Vehicle Communications. Nowa-days, a large population of people chooses to travel by cabsand hence, keeping in mind the safety of the commuters, itis the need of the hour for developing such products.Another study by (deu) mentions that according to NationalCrime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, drunk driving was amajor factor in road accidents. 99 per cent of the fatal acci-dents that occur on the Highways are due to drunk drivingand there is no check on this. Majority of these accidentsinvolved trucks since the truck drivers drive irresponsiblywhen they are fully drunk. Until and unless the nation startsa new system of checking drunk driving on the highways,these fatalities cannot be reduced, as mentioned by a JointCommissioner of Police. The current system of Drunk driverchecking requires traffic police to make people blow intothe breath-analyzers. However, it is not sufficient to checkevery instance of drunk driving cases due to the presenceof an enormous number of vehicles on roads and especiallyoutside cities and highways. Thus, an automatic monitoringsystem is needed to tackle this problem.
4. Experimental Setup
SIM900A Modem is built with Dual Band GSM/ GPRSbased SIM900A modem from SIMCOM. It works on fre-quencies 900/ 1800 MHz SIM900A can search these twobands automatically. The baud rate is configurable from1200-115200 through AT command. This is a completeGSM module in an SMT type and designed with a verypowerful single-chip processor integrating AMR926EJ-Score, allowing you to benefit from small dimensions andcost-effective solutions. Figure 2 shows a GSM SIM900A mart Car Features using Embedded Systems and IoT
Figure 4.
Neo 6m GPS module
Figure 5.
Triggering of Airbag circuitry and Accident Alert module.
The NEO-6m module shown in Figure 4 is a stand-aloneGPS receiver featuring the high-performance u-blox 6 posi-tioning engines. It is a flexible and cost-effective receiverthat offers numerous connectivity options in a mini 160 x122 x 24 cm package. It has a compact architecture andpower and memory options which makes NEO-6m modulesoptimal for space constraint, low-cost devices. It has anacquisition engine, and 2 million effective correlators, andcan make enormous parallel frequency searches, thus it canfind a satellite within a small time. This 50-channel u-blox6 positioning engine gives a Time to First Fix of around 1-2seconds. It has an anti-jamming technology, Eeprom forstoring settings which gives these receivers fantastic naviga-tion performance even when placed in extremely difficultenvironments.
Arduino Uno is a development board based on a dual-inline-package ATmega328 AVR microcontroller (Mazidi et al.,2005). It has 20 digital input/ output pins, 6 of them can beused as Pulse Width Modulated (Holtz, 1992) outputs and 6can be used as analog inputs. It has a 16 MHz crystal, a USBport, an ICSP header. Programs can be loaded onto it from
Figure 6.
SW420 Impact Sensor
Figure 7.
MQ3 Ethanol Sensor the Arduino computer program software which is an open-source IDE. The Arduino has a vast support community,which makes it a very easy way to get started working withit.
5. Proposed Methodology
When a car hits something with a strong force, it startsto decelerate very rapidly. An Impact Sensor detects thechange of velocity/amount of vibration. If the impact isgreat enough, the impact sensor triggers the airbag circuitand at the same time, it signals the Arduino to send an alert.Thus, when the impact is severe, the Arduino extracts thelocation by signalling the GPS module which connects withthe GPS satellites and retrieves the location of the car. Thislocation co-ordinates along with a google map link are sentto the designated mobile number in an SMS form throughthe GSM module.The SW420 sensor module gives outputs as ‘1’s or ‘0’sdepending on vibration, tilt, and external force applied to it.In absence of vibration, this module gives logic ‘0’ as outputand in presence of vibration, it gives logic ‘1’ as output. Ithas sensitivity control on the board. Figure 6 shows theSW420 impact sensor which we have used in our prototype. mart Car Features using Embedded Systems and IoT
Figure 8.
Rain Sensor Module
A panic button is placed such that whenever a passengerfeels terror and discomfort due to certain reasons, an alertmessage is raised by sending an SMS on pressing the button.There can be multiple panic buttons placed at different spotsin the vehicle and connected to the Arduino.
In this proposed system, an MQ-3 Ethanol Sensor as inFigure 7 is placed on the steering of the car or seat belt ofthe driver seat, such that it can monitor the percentage ofalcohol in the breath of the driver. If it is found to be higherthan set limits, then the Arduino signals the GSM to send analert for the same to the driver’s predefined safety number(such as a home number). Measures can also include not tostart the car engine unless the alcohol percentage reduces.When the user exhales, any ethanol present in their breathis oxidized to acetic acid. At the cathode, oxygen from theatmosphere is reduced. The overall reaction is the oxidationof ethyl alcohol. The charge flow produced by this reactionis measured and resistance is calculated, which results inthe different levels of intoxication that the Arduino willdetermine.
Car wipers in existing models are controlled manually bythe driver. Some of the high-end cars have this feature, butdue to cost factors, they have not yet made their way intonormal vehicles. A cost-effective version of it is proposedin this project which includes a rain-drop sensor shown inFigure 8 connected to the microcontroller, which is Arduinoin this case. The rain sensor detects rain and sends thecorresponding signal to the Arduino. This signal is thenprocessed by the Arduino to take the desired action. The rainsensor consists of nickel tracks which when gets connectedby water droplets in between the two tracks, the circuit getsconnected and it detects rain. The raindrop sensor moduleis low cost and precise for raindrop detection. Its sensitivitycan be changed by rotating the screw on the board. It has a
Figure 9.
Demonstration of Prototype digital output pin to indicate whether water is present or notand an analog output pin to give a measure of the intensityof water. The module has a power indicator led and separatecontrol board.A servo motor primarily contains a suitable motor, a gearreduction unit, a position measurement sensor, an controlcircuitry. Servo motor is a highly precise motor in termsof rotating angle. These are lightweight, low cost, com-pact motors that can be easily integrated into any circuits.The DC motor is connected to the gear unit which givesfeedback to the position sensor. The potentiometer adjustsdisplacement according to the present position of the motorshaft. As the resistance changes, the differential voltage isgenerated. A PWM wave is given to the control wire whichis transformed into voltage and is compared to the signalgenerated from the position sensor module. The control pinis connected to the Arduino’s PWM enabled pins.
6. Results and Discussion
Figure 9 shows the prototype we have developed for demon-stration. Figure 10 shows the screenshot of an alert sentby our system on detection of an accident. The text mes-sage has information about the location coordinates of thecar. The message could be sent to a police station or andesignated relative by presetting the number in the system.Similarly, Figure 11 shows the screenshot of the messagedelivered when the panic button in the vehicle is pressed. Ithas the location coordinated and the link to open it on theGoogle Map. In addition to these alerts, various other infor-mation can be sent in case of an emergency by modifyingthe code in the system.
7. Conclusion and Future Directions
The sensors and equipment proposed in this prototype arelow cost and efficient to a great extent, however in order tointegrate this features with an existing vehicle’s embedded mart Car Features using Embedded Systems and IoT
Figure 10.
SMS sent for Accident detection
Figure 11.
Panic Button Alert system, a much more compact unit need to be built, whichcan be added on-chip. We believe that with the develop-ment of more high quality and accurate sensors, much moredesirable and reliable outputs can be obtained.The main purpose of our demonstrations was to put forwardour research ideas with the hope of being further developedby the community and finally being scaled and deployed bythe autonomous vehicle industry.
References
India has the highest number of road accidents in the world.
Deutsche Welle . Article.Public transport vehicles to get gps, panic buttons from 2018.
HindustanTimes , Dec 2016. Article.Road accidents in india, 2016: 17 deaths on roads everyhour, chennai and delhi most dangerous.
Indian Express ,2016. Article.Holtz, J. Pulsewidth modulation-a survey.
IEEE transac-tions on Industrial Electronics , 39(5):410–420, 1992.Mazidi, M. A., Mazidi, J. G., and McKinlay, R. D.
The 8051microcontroller and embedded systems using assemblyand C . Dept. of Computer Science and Information Engi-neering National Cheng Kung . . . , 2005.Saaid, M., Kamaludin, M., and Ali, M. M. Vehicle locationfinder using global position system and global system formobile. In , pp. 279–284. IEEE, 2014.Shinde, P. A., Mane, Y., and Tarange, P. H. Real time vehiclemonitoring and tracking system based on embedded linuxboard and android application. In2015 International Con-ference on Circuits, Power and Computing Technologies[ICCPCT-2015]