Automatic Accident Detection and Rescue System Using LabVIEW

The advancement in technology in transportation sector has widened the risk of traffic mishaps causing loss to property, lives of humans and animals . The main objective of this paper is to provide a solution to decrease the frequency of death by the use of infrared sensor, GPS, eye blink sensor and GSM in this system ; this system uses LabVIEW software and the hardware component used is myRIO to run the operation in stand alone mode. This includes building a graphical user interface using the mentioned Sensors and installing them into the vehicles.

A message will be sent to the police, guardians and ambulance if the accident occurs, which includes the location where the accident is occurred. This system will assist the search parties and rescue vehicles if accident occurs. A drowsiness detection system is congregated in addition to prevention of general road accidents occurring due to any other reason except drowsiness of the person driving. This entire system is installed in the vehicle to continuously monitor the driver’s state if the driver feels sleepy an alarm is triggered if the time exceeds threshold time and it stops once the driver wakes up.

Introduction

In today’s world, the vehicle accidents were increasing day by day and it became one of the major problem in every country. With the increasing demand of vehicles and automobiles, the road accidents has risen enormously. In the year 2015, 1.5 lakh people were dead due to these road accidents among the reported five lakh accidents in India. Brasilia declaration was signed intending to reduce road accidents by 50% by 2022. The Motor Vehicles Bill, 2016 has been passed for consideration in Indian Parliament. This bill addresses issues associated with road safety, insurance of vehicles and road accidents. “There are more than 1.4 lakh deaths annually in India and One in every ten accidents occuring in the world are from India” says Ms. K.K.Kapila, Chairman, IRF ( International Road Federation). With the huge population the risk of accidents is also high in heavily populated country like India.

The life of the residents of a country is under threat in prospect of the inadequacy of better emergency resources accessible in our nation. This system is proposed to avoid this issue. The vehicle accident is detected in minimal time with the help of infrared sensor using it’s range detection property. GSM module embedded in this rescue system provides the car accident position(latitude, longitude) and time of the accident using GPS. When the accident is detected, information related to it is transmitted to ambulance services, police and the family members with the location so that they can provide quick medical treatment to the victim of vehicle accident using the GSM module. This alert message is sent to the rescuers in minimal span, which will assist in saving the lives of people. Not only it sends the SMS to ambulance but also alerts the driver if he is drowsy. The implementaton of this system, needs hardware progress for the sensor and a system that is controlled by LabVIEW software. The main objectives are as follows:

1. To develop a rescue system model.
2. To examine output using Lab View software in order to detect the vehicle accident.
3. To determine the location of the accident using GPS.
4. To, transmit the location of the accident using GSM system.
5. To alert the driver whenever he falls asleep.

Related Work

The use of smartphones in Accident Detection is mainly considered in the reference [2]. This system is mainly a mobile based application that sends message if any road accident is detected. The proper release of air bags when accident occurs is done by calculating the force in the multiples of gravitational force and assessing it if its grater than threshold value. The response is sent either by e-mail, fax or message with location and if there is no response an automatic call is generated and it informs rescue departments. Traffic regulations are also done by these systems. These systems are used to detect an accident and regulate the traffic of cars in the traffic rules for easing to facilitate a streamline flow of traffic with the operating system available. Traffic violations can also be observed using the systems.

The paper proposes an Accident detection system as part of system to solve the traffic problems at a junction. For calculating traffic we require a detailed information of the system which is total number of vehicles in specific place. The speeds of vehicles at certain or specific paths also determines the probability of accients. The use of smartphones can sometimes save lives. The SIM placed inside GSM requires adequate signal to work properly. The accelerometer provides the information of car accidents but it is not reliable as mounting a hill or going down a drain might affect the readings of the accelerometer. The complication of the disaster can be known with the readings of the sensors. False alarms for rescue team should be minimalised to least extent possible. However, accidents can be accessed through the application with data connection to provide accurate details of the accident. In [5] C. Prabha et al. GPS along with GSM are major part in sending the message. In that paper, it is proposed to use an

accelerometer sensors to apply car alarms in terms of speed, location and this dangerous driving is detected. Detection of the accident through a vibration sensor or accelerometer. Dinesh Kumar et al proposed to find the vehicle accident position [6]. Traffic safety improvement in terms of security and accountability using microcontroller and oscillation sensor. The car owner will receive a message about the site of the vehicle at predetermined intervals using GSM. NiravThakor et al. have proposed the detection of traffic accidents auto system based on ARM & GPS [9].

System Design

System Block diagram

The proposed system is the congregation of two parts, they are accident detection part and accident control part. These two parts uses LabView software. Both parts are connected by using GUI (Graphical User Interface) and NI myRIO programming. Here the GUI is LabVIEW software . Fig 1 shows the structure of the block diagram of the parts accident detection and control system.

The transmitter section in this project includes an Infrared sensor (IR) sensor, it contains a transmitter and receiver. It transmits continuous IR rays that are received by the receiver module. The output of the receiver varies depending upon the density of received IR rays. It means the output depends on the size of object. An operational amplifier of LM 358 is used as comparator circuit, to evaluate the output properly. If IR receiver does not receive a signal, the potential at the inverting input goes higher than that non-inverting input of the comparator IC making the output of the comparator goes low, but the LED does not glow. The potential at the inverting input goes low when the IR receiver receives signal. Thus the output of the comparator (LM 358) goes high and the LED starts glowing. Resistors R1 (100Ω ), R2 (10kΩ ) and R3 (330Ω) are used to take care that atleast a current of 10 mA passes through the photodiode and normal LED’s. The resistors VR2 (preset= 4.7kΩ ),VR1 (preset=10kΩ ) are used to adjust the output terminals, to set the sensitivity respectively. The circuit Diagram of this sensor is shown in Figure (2).

The condition for acceptable performance is IR transmitter side and receiver side should be in a straight line. The transmitter transmits rays into the eye of the driver.If the eyes are closed then the output becomes high and appropriate action is made i.e alarm is activated and it rings till the person driving opens his eyes. If the person does not closes his eyes for more than the pre-fixed value i.e here 3 seconds there will be no triggering of alarm else the alarm gets triggered by eye blink sensor. The comparator, as the name suggests compares two voltages at two different terminals namely inverting and non-inverting terminals. Schematic diagram for eyeblink sensor is shown in fig(3).

GSM Module

The GSM module is interfaces by LabView Software. It is divided into two parts, they are hardware part and software part. The GSM modem we use needs hyper terminal to set-up the connection to enable the GSM modem for sending message to hand-phone. We use GSM to send SMS to mobile phone. However, AT command must set in the user interface block diagram to send message to a phone if Infrared sensor is triggered. Figure 4 depicts how a message is sent by GSM to mobile phone by using LabView software.

The hardware continuously checks for these two cases and responds to that accordingly. Sometimes drowsiness might be reason for accidents, so even if the cause of accident is drowsiness of driver, we are first trying to make him regain his consciousness and alert the rescue services if accident still happpens. So we have a two level detection incase the driver is drowsy.

Hardware Components

GSM Module

The GSM module is global System for Mobile Communication. The GSM used here is a wireless modem that works with GSM wireless network, it also includes a varied range of devices using the radio waves, digital interface to send and receive information.

The GSM requires a SIM to send message, preferably a 4G SIM for better functioning. GSM is used to set up cellular connection and for sending mobile voice. GSM can be transmitted by the serial port for wireless GSM communication including sending and receiving messages. Figure (6) shows GSM modem. It can be connected to RS-232 port for remote management [11 & 12].

NI Myrio

NI MyRIO is a hardware component. Here we use it to dump the LabVIEW code. It can be operated in stand alone mode which is the primary advantage. It has memory so connecting to a computer with wires is not always necessary. We can connect it to computer using cable and wifi options. The NI MyRIO consists of a dual-core ARM Cortex™-A9 processor and an FPGA with 28,000 programmable logic cells, 6 analog outputs, 10 analog inputs, audio I/O channels, and up to 40 lines of digital input/output. It also contains a three-axis (X, Y & Z) accelerometer, and several programmable LEDs in a enclosed form factor. Figure (7) shows the front view of myRIO.

Infrared Sensor

An infrared sensor(IR) emits in order to sense some aspects of the surroundings. An infrared sensor can detect motion and temperature of the object. Usually, in the infrared spectrum, all the objects radiate some form of thermal radiation. These types of radiations are invisible to our eyes which can be detected only by an infrared sensor. The emitter of IR sensor is a IR LED (Light Emitting Diode) and the detector is infrared photodiode that is sensitive to infrared radiation of the same wavelength as that emitted by the IR LED. When IR light falls on the photodiode, the resistances and the output voltages will change in proportionally with respect to magnitude of the IR light received.

Eyeblink Sensor

This Eye Blink sensor is IR based i.e using IR rays for showing output. With the blinks of eye, the eye blink sensor gets triggered. The response will be high if the eye is closed else output will be low. The output of this sensor is connnected to alarm via a transistor (if required to raise the voltage required to trigger alarm). The output from eye blink sensor might not always suffice the alarm input requirements. The functionality depends on the position of the emitter and detector with respect to the eye. Figure (9) shows the Eye blink sensor.

GPS module

GPS stands for Global Positioning System, is a navigation system made by 24 satellites network placed into a particular orbit. Satellites used in GPS systems revolves around our planet two times a day in a particular orbit and transmit signal information to earth. The receivers present on earth take this information calculates the user’s exact location. GPS ultra-sensitive GPS receiver can acquire GPS signals from about sixty five channels of satellites and send the output i.e. position data with good accuracy in The GPS receiver’s -160dBm tracking sensitivity allows continuous position coverage in nearly all application environments. The output is serial data of 9600 baud rate, which is considered as a standard rate.

Experiment Results

This system will send message to saved numbers(Rescue services) when the system is alerted. This system will send a command to GSM module to send a warning message to a particular person(s). Figure(11) shows the front panel for the overall system.

Once the code is run, if there is no problem with the signal of SIM in GSM, The pop-up shown in the figure (12) appears on the front panel once the accident is detected.

Similarly if the GSM is unable to send the message due to any issue like low signal, GPS unable to locate the position of the accident then the pop-up in figure (13) appears on the front panel.

Whenever driver feels sleepy an alarm is set to ring till the driver opens his eyes if the time exceeds two seconds.This operation is also included in the front panel. The Elapsed time indicates the duration till which driver is sleeping. The LED named Slept? will glow if driver is closing his eyes for more than two seconds. The front panel sample output for drowsiness detection is shown in figure (14).

If there are no issues like lack of signal for GSM and location not determined by GPS, then the message will be sent showing the details of time and location of the accident. A sample message output received by an rescue service is shown in figure (15). The last line indicates the time of the accident in 24 hour clock format here in figure (15) the time of accident is 01:23:09.

Conclusion

This paper presents the hardware system of the automatic accident detection and rescue system using LabVIEW that triggers alarm automatically so that no injured will not be left without getting rescued in time. This accident detection system is suitable for all types of vehicles i.e two, three, four

or more wheeled vehicles. This system is much effective than the accelerometer based accident rescue systems.This accident rescue system is an integration of LabView software and hardware components. This system is capable of detecting accidents, drowsiness of the person driving the vehicle and sending message alert to rescue sevices. It also alerts the driver when he is sleepy using an alarm.

References

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