Mobile safety systems for automobiles

International Journal of Computerand Technology (IJCET), ISSN 0976 – 6367(Print),
International Journal of Computer Engineering Engineering
ISSN 0976 – 6375(Online) Volume 1, Number 2, Sep - Oct (2010), © IAEME
and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 0976 – 6367(Print)
ISSN 0976 – 6375(Online) Volume 1
IJCET
Number 2, Sep - Oct (2010), pp. 166-179 ©IAEME
© IAEME, http://www.iaeme.com/ijcet.html

MOBILE SAFETY SYSTEMS FOR AUTOMOBILES
Jagannath Aghav
College of Engineering, Pune
E-Mail: jva.comp@coep.ac.in

Nikhil Sharma
College of Engineering, Pune
E-Mail: sharmana09.comp@coep.ac.in

ABSTRACT
The safety systems in automobiles are adopting the state of the art technologies to
provide multiple functionalities to end user. There is a significant rise in number of
automobiles in last two decades. Also the embedded system now a days have become
more complex and intelligent. All automobile manufactures are trying to make their
vehicles more and more intelligent using the embedded systems. Thus, driving the digital
systems in the vehicles more and more complex. Taking into consideration the available
computing power on the vehicle we are proposing safety system based on android
operating system along with general purpose radio packet and global positioning system
for automobiles. The system comprises of geographical information system, general
purpose radio packet and global positioning system services running on android platform
in a remote device and in the vehicle. The user will be able to access these services on the
remote device; also will be able to communicate with the service running in the vehicle.
The different type of service running on the remote device will be mapping the vehicle on
the geographical information systems, sending control signals to the vehicle services and
getting the status of the vehicle from the vehicle unit.
1 INTRODUCTION
High automobile theft rate is demanding implementation of more secure and
reliable onboard services for automobiles. These services are bounded to be very secure,
easy to use, easy to maintain and should have fast response time. The implementation of
such a service is a great area of concern of the leading automobile manufacturers. System

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 0976 – 6367(Print),

proposed here has android operating system running which is secure, easy to use,
maintainable and has good response time. The security issue is accomplishes by
providing mixed authentication through a password and a finger print recognition. Also,
the system will be easy to use as the graphical interface for the security device will be
user friendly same as in most of the mobile. The system can be easily maintain as the
onboard diagnoses for the safety device as well as the base unit in vehicle will be
provided. Also will be having fast response as we will be using the latest microcontroller
for both the safety device and the base unit in vehicle.
The safety device will be empowered by android operating system and with all
the latest technologies such as GPRS, GIS, and finger print recognition system. Android
libraries will be used for the interfaces with the peripheral devices. GPRS module in the
safety device will be used to receive the data coming from the vehicle; also will be used
to send the data over cellular network to the base unit in the vehicle. GIS will be used to
show the GPS data coming from the base unit on the maps. Finger print recognition
system is used to give the additional security.
The base unit will be empowered by the technologies such as, GPRS, GPS,
Sensors, and Actuators. GPRS will be used to receive the GPRS packets coming from the
safety device and also will be used to send the status data and the GPS location data to
the safety device. GPS will be used to get the current location data from the GPS
satellites. Sensors are will used to get the running status of the engine, brakes, fuel level,
doors, and windows. Actuators are the devices that will bring the digital control data
coming from the safety device into reality. Actuators which will be used to switch off the
engine, apply auto brakes, close the windows and lock the doors.
To use the safety device user will we asked for a password and a finger print
input. If user passes this authentication process he will be given the access. Using this
safety device user will be able to monitor the location of the vehicle, get the current status
of the vehicle and also control the vehicle. Depending upon the signal selected by user
corresponding packet will be formed and send to the base unit over GPRS channel. The
base unit will accept the packet and depending upon the request will take corresponding
action. If the user wants to know the current location of the vehicle, the base unit will get
the location data first from the GPS satellite, pack it in GPRS packet and send it to the

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safety device. For status packet the system will gather the current state of the engine,
brakes, doors, windows and fuel tank from the sensors and will send the information back
to the safety device. In case of control packet, the base unit will take corresponding
action according to the request. If the user requests to stop the vehicle, the base unit will
instruct the brake actuator to apply auto brakes to the vehicle. If the user wants to switch
off the engine, the base unit will instruct the engine actuator to cut-off the fuel supply by
closing throttle valve and also to disconnect the spark plug from electric supply resulting
in switching off the engine. If the user wants to close the doors and lock the windows the
base unit will send control signals to corresponding actuators to perform the requested
task.
Section 2 presents a quick overview of the proposed system. Section 3 illustrates
the details of Safety device and its functions. Section 4 gives a detailed description of
functionalities of the base unit in the automobile. Section 5 presents a detail algorithm of
the proposed technique. Section 6 gives a snapshot of the Java code for our algorithm.
Section 6.2 shows a detail code for each module. Section 7 presents the conclusions of
this paper.
2 OVERVIEW OF SAFETY SYSTEM DESIGN
Safety system is broadly divided into two sections: Safety device and Automobile
base device. The Safety device is like a safety control which is capable of monitoring and
controlling the automobile remotely. It is powered by technologies such as Android
operating system, GPRS, GIS and finger print recognition system. The main functions of
the safety device are authentication of the user, sending control Section 4.2, status
Section 4.1and location request packets to the automobile unit. These packets will be
send on the GPRS network. The location request packet will be responded by the
automobile unit as a location response packet. This packet will contain location
coordinates that will be directly mapped on the GIS maps using Android build in GIS
support. The Automobile will be responding to the packets coming from the Safety
device.

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Figure 1 System Layout
3 SAFETY DEVICES
The safety device will be capable of monitoring and controlling the automobile
remotely with Android operating system running on it. We have chosen Android
operating system because its open source and it has a wide software support for all the
technologies available in the market. Each of the hardware interfaced with the device will
be registered as a service on the Android system. These services will communicate with
the automobile unit on behalf of the user. Due to the large supported libraries provided by
Android the implementation can be made more effective and easy.
For the communication with the automobile base unit we have chosen GPRS,
because GPRS makes efficient use radio spectrum to combine mobile access with the
internet protocol. GPRS provides high data rates. Using GPRS we will be able to send
and receive the control data with high speed as, GPRS provides high bandwidth. Also, we
can use GPRS used to get the location of the vehicle based on the cell triangulation
technique whenever GPS is not working.
The safety device will be mapping the automobile on GIS maps based on the
location co-ordinates coming from the automobile base unit. As Android has a build in
support for the GIS maps the mapping will not be problem.
We have defined three packet formats depending upon the type of request that the
safety device can make those are, control packet, status packet and location request
packet. The control packet will ask the automobile unit 4 to perform control actions such
as switching off the engine, applying auto brakes, closing the windows and locking the
doors. The status packet will ask the automobile unit to send the current status of the

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automobile parts such as, engine, fuel level, windows and doors. The location request
packet will ask for the current location of the automobile.

Figure 2 Safety device block diagram
4 AUTOMOBILE BASE UNIT
The automobile base unit will get the control or status request packet from the
safety device and the microcontroller running in the base unit will respond to these
requests in corresponding form. The technologies that the base unit will be using is GPS
receiver, GPRS transmitter and receiver, microcontroller, sensors and actuators.
4.1 Status packet response
The status request coming from the safety device will be asking for the status of
the automobile parts such as, engine, fuel level, doors and windows. On arrival of the
status packet the microcontroller will communicate with the sensor present on the engine,
fuel tank, doors and windows and gets the current value the sensors are holding. Once the
microcontroller gets the value of the sensors it will preprocess the value and pack it into a
status response packet and send it back to the safety device.
4.2 Control Packet response
If the user wants to control the vehicle a control packet will be send to the vehicle
asking the base unit to perform certain actions. Depending upon the actions listed in the

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control packet the microcontroller will ask the following actuators to perform the
corresponding action. The control packet can have actions like, switch-off the engine,
apply brakes, lock the doors and close the windows or a combination of all. If the control
action is switching off the engine the microcontroller will issue a close command to the
actuator placed on the engine. The engine can be switched off by closing the throttle
valve. If the control request is of applying brakes the microcontroller will ask the actuator
placed on the brakes to apply the brake automatically. Simultaneously the doors and the
windows can be locked and closed respectively using the actuators.
4.3 Location request packet
In case of location request packet the microcontroller will get location parameters
and send them back to the safety device. The microcontroller will get the current location
from the GPS receiver or if the GPS receiver is not working the microcontroller will
calculate the location using the GPRS cell triangulation method. Once the microcontroller
gets the location parameters it will send the location to the safety device using the GPRS
network.
5 ALGORITHM
A detailed algorithm is given below:
1: Display Login Page and Get the Personal Identification Number (PIN)
2: Match the PIN submitted by the user and the stored PIN
3: if the PIN matches then
4: continue,
5: else
6: Display "Incorrect PIN" and goto end
7: end if
8: Ask the user to input the finger prints and match with stored finger prints
9: if Finger print matches then
10: continue
11: else
12: Display "Finger print Note matched" and goto end
13: end if

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14: Display menu
1: Watch vehicle on map
2: Get current status
3: Control the vehicle
4: Exit
15: if choice = 1 then
16: goto 26
17: else if choice = 2 then
18: goto 31
20: goto 35
22: goto end
23: else
24: display "Enter correct choice" and goto step 14
25: end if
26: Initialize the GPRS transmitter and ask for GPS co-ordinates.
27: Get the GPS co-ordinates from the GPRS receiver.
28: Initialize the GIS map and Map the GPS co-ordinates on the GIS MAP.
29: Display the GIS map to the user
30: If user stop the view goto step 14
31: Initialize the GPRS transmitter
32: Send a signal to In Vehicle unit to send the current status of each sensor.
33: Get the data from the GPRS receiver Display the data in graphical format to the user
34: If user stop the display goto step 6, else goto step 14 for every 0.5 seconds
35: Initialize the GPRS transmitter. Send a packet to the in- vehicle unit indicating the
following packet will be a control signal packet
36: Display "What u want to do?" :
1: Switch off the engine
2: Lock the Doors
3: Close the windows

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4: Send a message
5: Exit
37: If 1 Make “Engine off = true" in control packet
38: If 2 Make “Lock Doors = true" in control packet
39: If 3 Make “Close Window = true" in control packet
40: If 4 Display “Type the message" and get message in msg and send msg as a text
message to In vehicle base unit
41: If 5 goto step 43
42: Default Display "Enter correct choice“ goto step 36
43: Stop the process
6 JAVA PROGRAM
A detailed implementation of the proposed technique is given below,
6.1 Main Program
The function following will display the menu for the user and also get the desired
action that the user wants to perform.
public class Main
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Menu mn = new Menu();
mn.displayClientMenu();
int ch = mn.getChoice();
switch(ch)
{
case 1:
System.out.println("Show status");
showStatus();
break;
case 2:
System.out.println("Control vehicle");

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sendControl();
break;
case 3:
System.out.print("U have choice to exit");
exit();
}
}
Following function is a code snapshot of sending the control packet over GPRS
network.
private static void sendControl()
{
GprsReceiver gp = new GprsReceiver();
gp.setPacket("control");
gp.setGprsID(123);
gp.sendPacketControl(gp.createPacketControl());
}
This code snapshot will display the status of the automobile parts.
private static void showStatus()
{
GprsReceiver gp = new GprsReceiver();
gp.setPacket("status");
gp.setGprsID(123);
gp.requestPacketStatus();
gp.sendPacket();
gp.receivePacketStatus();
gp.DisplayPacketStatus();
}
private static void exit()
{
throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not yet implemented");
}

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}
6.2 Detail of each module
The code given below is a prototype of detail functionalities of each module used
in the system
Following code is a prototype of the GPRS receiver module
public class GprsReceiver
{
private int GprsID;
private String Packet;
public int getGprsID()
{
return GprsID;
}
public void setGprsID(int GprsID)
{
this.GprsID = GprsID;
}
public String getPacket()
{
return Packet;
}
public void setPacket(String Packet)
{
this.Packet = Packet;
}
Following code is a prototype of GPRS control packet creating module
ControlPacket createPacketControl()
{
String side = "Road Side";
ControlPacket cp = new ControlPacket();

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StatusPacket sp = new StatusPacket();
sp.getCarPosition();
sp.isBracksStaus();
sp.isDoorStatus();
sp.isEngineStatus();
sp.isWindowStatus();
System.out.print("Current status of vehicle is");
System.out.print("sp.getCarPosition()"+"sp.isBracksStaus()"+"sp.isDoorSt
atus()"+"sp.isEngineStatus()"+ "sp.isWindowStatus()");
System.out.print("What u want to do");
int ch =0;
while(ch != 5)
{
System.out.print(“1: Switch engine off 2: Lock Doors 3:Close
windows 4:Apply Brakes 5:Exit”);
set(ch);
switch(ch)
{
case 1:
cp.setWindowStatus(false);
break;
case 2:
cp.setDoorStatus(false);
break;
case 3:
cp.setCarPosition(side);
break;
case 4:
cp.setBracksStaus(false);
break;
}

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}
return cp;
}
void receivePacket()
{
Receiver Packet from GPRS receiver
}
void DisplayPacket()
{
Display the received packet
}
private void sendPacketControl(ControlPacket cp) Sends the GPRS control packet over
the GPRS tramitter
}
void requestPacketStatus()
{
Request for a Status packet to the in Vehicle Base Unit
}
void receivePacketStatus()
{
Receives a Status packet from the In Vehicle Base Unit
}
void DisplayPacketStatus()
{
Displays a Status Packet Received from the GPRS receiver
}
}
7. CONCLUSION
The system we have proposed is secure, reliable, easy to maintain and use. We
have integrated the state of the art technologies to fulfill the current requirements of the

177


vehicles. After installation of the device, theft rate will be reduced to great extent as the
automobile is in continuous monitoring and control. On board diagnosis will help in
finding and solving the errors. Adding/Updating functionalities to the automobile will be
easy as the underlying Android Operating System has a wide software support. Installing
the safety system will result in reduction of the theft rate, improving the diagnoses of the
automobile by tracking the current status of the automobile parts.
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[9] Ming-Chiao Chen, Jiann-Liang Chen b, Teng-Wen Chang “Android based
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Mobile safety systems for automobiles

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