Paper 278:

Black Box: An Emergency Rescue

Dispatch System for Road Vehicles
for Instant Notification of Road
Accidents and Post Crash Analysis.

ICIEV 2014

10th April, 2014. Imagine Cup 2014 Bangladesh.

Black Box: An Emergency Rescue Dispatch

System for Road Vehicles for Instant Notification
of Road Accidents and Post Crash Analysis.
Authors:
Member Names
Sayem Chaklader
Ali Shihab Sabbir

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IUB.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6850749

How safe is a vehicle:

Understanding the Problem

Country

USA
Malaysia
India
Bangladesh

Road fatalities per 100,000

motor vehicles [7]

Estimated GDP lost

due to road traffic
crashes [27]

15
36.5
100
6300

2.3%
1.6%
3.0%
1.6%

1.24 million people die

each year as a result of Road
Traffic Crashes. (WHO)

Number of Registered
Vehicles [27]

The number would reach

million

258,957,503
20,188,565
114,952,000
1,624,862

1.9

casualties by the year 2020

Those who live, has a high chance

of incurring a disability

Those who live, has a high

chance of incurring a disability

91%

of these happens in
Low to Middle income countries

How safe is a vehicle:

Understanding the Problem

Lack of
classification of
vehicle, lack of
classification of
roads and more
importantly lack of
Vehicle Maintenance
and Control and
identification of
critical accident
points
Source: thedailystar.net

Who is it for:
Road Accidents and how concerning it is both Locally and Globally

Only 7 percent of the worlds

population is under
comprehensive road safety
laws.

Road Safety Cell (RSC) reports

70% of drivers in Bangladesh
have no legal driving license.

Annual fatality rate for

Weak condition of
vehicles
Poor traffic management
Lack of awareness

Bangladesh is 85.6 per

10,000 cars
It is 3 per 10,000 for most
developed countries

Our Approach to the problem:

The focus of our research is to reduce the time it takes for

an ambulance to arrive at the crash location in the event of an
Accident and Build a rescue infrastructure for emergency
services. To create a model of this system our objectives
include (1) Build a device (Black Box) that can collect GPS
Data and Send them via GSM instantly on the event of a crash.
(2) Allow trigger for several types of crash such as vehicle
getting plunged in to water, high cabin/engine temperature and
different road collision types such as rear-end collision, angle
or side impacts. (3) Log data such as GPS, temperature, frame
by frame image of the event, Motion Data for preliminary postcrash analysis. (4) Design a prototype desktop application for
the emergency rescue department to track multiple crashes and
locate the nearest medical facilities from the spot of the crash
for quicker ambulance dispatch.

Our Solution , Vehicle Black Box:

The Concept

SmS

GPS

Owner
Phone

SmS
SmS

Hospital / Emergency / Rescue Service etc.

Our Black Application for Windows Phone 8.

Vehicle Black Box:

Vehicle Emergency

Supporting Applications:
For building a safety network and system

Service history will make people a bit more conscious if applied.

Government can find out the condition of each vehicle.
Application for smart garage and smart vehicle owner.

Hardware Device:
For building a safety network and system
Impact and
Sensor
placements

We plan on
making the
device Open
Standard

Device Components & Costs

Price (in US
Dollar)

Component

Build Cost of the entire System

Raspberry Pi

40

Ardunio Uno R3 x 2

60

Venus GPS

50

GPS Antenaa

13

Spark Fun MPU6050

40

USB Hub

Huawei GSM Module

25

Temperature Sensor x 2

10

DS1307 Real-Time Clock

Camera Module

30

Physical Impact Switches x4

40

Cable and Enclosure

30
Total

350

Frame by Frame Image Capture:

Image showing the dash board

view captured using the
Raspberry Pi camera from a
test run of our device on real
roads. The entire video made
from several images can be
found on our Youtube [20]
including the final
route plot from gathered
GPS data using Google Earth.

[20] Youtube, Trip2. Last accessed on : 25th January, 2014. URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P34KuJgsJL8

Post Crash Analysis

Detection and mitigation of frequent points of accidents
Over a period of time and with enough crash locations, the frequent points of incidents can be
identified. With the aid of iRAP[4], those sections of roads can be reconstructed to resolve the
issue.
Increased and accurate reporting of road accidents
Since the device is free of human intervention, the accidents can be instantly registered
providing a more accurate overview of the number of accidents happening on the road. This
will also contribute to the National Road Traffic Accident Report.
Image Record of accident for preliminary post crash analysis.
The frame by frame image captured would help determine the cause of the crash. With the
help of this single unit, the multi-faceted reason for accidents can be properly identified and
then a solution can be proposed to mitigate the issue. Such real world crash images can also
help shape cars to be safer in the future.
Identification of dangerous road conditions
The vertical axis g-forces can provide an idea of the road condition the vehicle was being
driven on. The bumpier the road, the higher values will be registered along with gravity.
Driving behavior can be understood with the help of gyroscope data (tilt angles, acceleration).
Figure 9 shows a plot made from 52,000 data points acquired from a test run on real roads.

Vertical Sensor Values against Elapsed Time (in Epoch). The Red triangles shows
where the car went over Speed Bumps, the Blue Triangle shows rough patches of
roads. Raw sensor value of -1800 represents 1G.

Rescue Dispatch System

Emergency Crash Rescue System Desktop Application showing hospitals near

the crash location along with vehicle registration number on Google Maps with
time and based on received co-ordinates.

Shortcomings & Future plans

Using a single Arduino Mega and GSM900
To lower cost, power consumption of the
device and increase reliability.
Implement the project on a number of cars
Either via A2i or University Fund to get routing
information and real world tests(crashes)
Upload recorded data to a central server
via FTP (sim900, data connection),
Using motion sensor data to trigger the
crash event and get rid of physical triggers.
A report ahead system so that the user
may know a crash has happened in his/her
ongoing path.

Dependencies

Although it requires partnership with the network operator in

the sense that they provide a Phone Number against a person
and not to a vehicle. A new system needs to be in place where
a Number can be given for the Vehicle under the owners
name.
Dependency includes Network Coverage. And GPS will not
work indoors (ex: parking lot in a building). It requires open
sky to work. But the device carries last instance of the GPS
data.

CONCLUSION

Overall such devices and systems can be the changing factor in road safety. Life
is priceless and we should be doing whatever possible to make roads safer. WHO
has already predicted 1.9 million casualties by the year 2020. Bangladesh is
especially at risk as the country is being reformed by building more bridges, roads
and better transportation networks and new areas emerges to develop.
Gradually with assistance from both the vehicle owners and the Government
assisting in deployment of such devices in vehicles, we can reduce the impact
from the ever so concerning issue of road accidents. In addition it will help save
lives, aid in better data collection and build an infrastructure solution using
Emergency Crash Reporting Software to support the rescue services of the
country.

Thank you.