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International Conference on Applications and Techniques in Information Science (iCATIS2019), 19-23 Jan
2019, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Procs. of International Conference on Applications and Techniques in Information Science (iCATIS2019)
19-22 Jan, 2019, Dhaka Bangladesh
ISBN: 978-0-6482681-6-1
An IoT Based Car Accident Prevention and
Detection System with Smart Brake Control
Mubashir Murshed1 and Md Sanaullah Chowdhury2
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Chittagong
Chittagong, Bangladesh.
mubashir.ma98@gmail.com, sana1691@gmail.com
Abstract—Car accidents are considered one of the most
destructive phenomena. Though there are many different
reasons behind car accidents, most accidents occur due to
driver’s unawareness and uncontrolled speed. Also, there
seems to be a problem reaching the spot of accident in time for
lack of awareness. As a solution, the advent of Internet of
Things (IoT) technologies can reduce the number of accidents.
In this paper, a smart system is described that alerts and
controls the speed of a vehicle, also notifies the individuals
accordingly when an accident occurs. This system always
monitors the distance between vehicles and obstacles that are
in front, using distance sensor. It will alert the driver to control
the speed and reduce the speed by itself when a critical
distance comes. Whenever an accident takes place for
uncertain condition, an email alert will be sent to the
accountable individual with car details.
Keywords—accident, IoT, sensor, rescue, email.
I. INTRODUCTION
Every year, approximately 1.35 million people die as a
result of road accidents. Because of these accidents, more
than 20 to 50 million people suffer from non-fatal injuries.
And many become disabled from these injuries. Road
crashes cost USD $518 billion globally, costing individual
countries from 1-2% of their annual GDP [1].
The challenge is to reduce the number of accidents. For
which, it’s better to take action before an accident occurs.
But sometimes it’s not in our hands. And so, many injured
lose their lives for not getting informed beforehand. An
automated intelligent system would be the best solution
considering the circumstances.
The existing solution provides assistance to passengers
when an accident occurs. The injured must launch the
system to request for help manually. But it would not have
been possible if he/she were under critical or serious non-
vital situation. There exists no system that controls vehicle
speed to prevent accidents with automatic alert.
Our proposed solution is an IoT based smart system. This
system requires no user interaction while driving or going in
through accident. It provides a real time vehicle alert to the
driver and controls speed of the car automatically. It does
both accident detection and reporting. This can be
applicable towards prevention of any vehicular accident.
The primary user of this system is general people.
The main contributions of this paper are: (a) Developing a
new smart IoT based solution which will reduce the number
of road accidents. (b) Providing proper alert to the
community to lower the rate of death. (c) Applying a speed
control system to slow down the speed when a critical
position is found. (d)Implementing an alert system for the
proper awareness of drivers. (e) Observing the distance from
the vehicle to the obstacles.
In the beginning of this paper, a statistical study on car
accident is presented. Sections II, III, IV, and V describe the
related work, the proposed system, design and architecture,
and implementation consecutively. Sections VI and VII give
results, conclusions and future work.
II. RELATED WORKS
This section overlooks similar existing systems and
examines their advantages and disadvantages. There are a
lot of systems that only detects accidents. There has not
been a system to prevent and detect accidents at the same
time in an efficient manner.
Automatic Vehicle Accident Detection and Messaging
System Using GSM and GPS Modem [2], proposed a
system that detects a vehicle accident using vibration sensor
and sends an alert message to police control room for
rescue. In this system, there is no accident prevention
system.
An IoT Approach to Vehicle Accident Detection, Reporting,
and Navigation [3], proposed a rescuing process by
reporting location of an accident with other information.
There is no accident prevention mechanism.
International Conference on Applications and Techniques in Information Science (iCATIS2019), 19-23 Jan 2019, Dhaka,
Bangladesh
Alcohol Detection and Accident Prevention of Vehicle [4],
this system used alcohol detecting sensor in vehicle which
detects alcohol gases and sends messages with location to
their relatives. This process is useful for special purpose, not
for overall accident detection and prevention.
Accident Detection and Reporting System using GPS,
GPRS and GSM Technology [5], this paper proposes a
system that has the capability of detecting accident based on
monitored speed and send an alert to police stations. Speed
of a vehicle will be monitored and compared using GPS.
This system has no alert facilities that can prevent accidents.
Study and Implementation of Internet of Things Based
Vehicle Safety Alert and Tracking System [6], the purpose
of this system is to alert for an accident and vehicle theft.
This system is able to provide accident location. It has no
facility to prevent accident.
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
In this section, we elucidate our proposed system at a high
level scope.
This paper proposes a new system that helps avoid vehicle
clash if possible. As a consequence, the system alerts
authoritative individual when an accident takes place. It
monitors the vehicle to gather information regarding the
distance between two vehicles. The ultrasonic sensors are
used to measure the distance. This measurement gets
updated each second. Furthermore, it’s displayed to the
driver via an interface.
The system sends an alert to the driver depending on some
criteria such safe, slow down, brake etc. When two vehicles
come close, alarm in the car will get triggered. The yellow
led alert will be displayed for caution. If there comes a
critical position between two vehicles, the red led alert will
be shown with a buzzer sound. The system will constantly
keep showing the distance between two vehicles on the
interface. Alarms are to alert the driver and calculation of
the distance helps predict probability of a clash.
When the distance between two vehicles becomes critical
and the driver doesn’t respond, the system will put brake on
the car or change it’s gear to slow down using a servo motor.
Hypothetically, if an accident happens, the system will send
an email as an alert with car details to the authority for the
rescue. Figure 1 shows the flowchart of the system and figure
2 shows how the system works with a diagram.
Fig. 1. Flowchart of the system.
Fig. 2. Diagram of how the system works.
The proposed system is made of Raspberry Pi, Ultrasonic
Sensor, Led, Buzzer and Servo motor. Here, we use
Raspberry Pi that sends email alert without the use of other
sensors, which is more economic.
IV. DESIGN AND ARCHITECHTURE
The conceptual model of our proposed system that defines
the structure and behavior is described here.
The system has some parts that have to be installed in a car
properly. Ultrasonic sensor needs to be placed in front of the
car. In a manual transmission car, servo motor should be
attached to the gearbox. In case of an automatic
transmission car, it is placed near the master cylinder, to the
brake pedal. An interface must be in front of the driver’s
seat.
When one car is far from another one, the green led alert
will indicate safety. Eventually, if the distance between two
vehicles shrink, yellow led alert along with a message will
be displayed in the interface. If the distance between
vehicles shrinking even more, a buzzer sound alert with red
led light will be displayed. In that event, it will indicate a
risk warning. After this alert, if there is no response received
from the driver, the system will slow down the car using a
servo motor. This is one of the most important functions of
this system.
The servo motor that is placed in the gearbox or brake
paddle will be attached in the most effective way. As a
result, it will be able to change the gear. Even perform brake
operation to help control the speed of the vehicle.
In a manual transmission car, it will operate on the gearbox
and clutch by changing gears. This allows the car to both
change speed and stop it completely without turning off the
engine [7]. This operation is shown in figure 3 with the exact
position of servo motor.
International Conference on Applications and Techniques in Information Science (iCATIS2019), 19-23 Jan 2019, Dhaka,
Bangladesh
Fig. 3. Gearbox of a car with servo motor.
In an automatic transmission car, it will operate on brake
pedal. This will allow the car to both change the speed and
make it stop at the same time [8]. This operation is shown in
figure 4 with the exact position of servo motor.
Fig. 4. Brake system of a car with servo motor.
V. IMPLEMENTATION
We have used IoT device containing several components
and modules as well as communication capability. The
major components of this device are:
Hardware and Software Components:
The hardware and software components needed are given
below.
Raspberry Pi: Raspberry pi is a small size computer that is
commonly used in many scientific and non-scientific fields
efficiently. For its low cost and smaller size, it can be
quickly adopted by tinkerers, makers, and electronics
enthusiasts for projects that required more than a basic
microcontroller (such as Arduino devices). It has built-in
WI-FI facility that helps making IoT devices without adding
another module which makes it cost efficient.
Ultrasonic Sensor: Ultrasonic sensors measure distance by
using ultrasonic waves. It’s head emits an ultrasonic wave
and receives the wave reflected back from the target.
Ultrasonic Sensors measure the distance to the target by
measuring the time between the emission and reception of
the waves.
HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor is used in this system.
Servo Motor: A servo motor is a rotary actuator or motor
that allows precise control in terms of angular position,
acceleration and velocity. It makes good use of a regular
motor and perform special type operations than a regular
motor.
Servo Motor SG90 is used for the prototype of the system.
Although, we will have to use more powerful servo motor to
cope with car mechanism. They all are same in terms of
configuration. So, it can easily be used without change.
Software: Raspberry Pi open-source prototyping platform
for data and processing. The Raspberry Pi board was
programmed using the python programming language in a
built-in IDE.
Circuit Diagram:
The circuit diagram of the system is given shown in figure
5.
Fig. 5. Circuit Diagram of the system.
VI. RESULTS
This section shows some features that are implemented in
our system. Figure 6 shows the result that will be shown on
the interface and figure 7 shows the email alert sent to the
responsible persons.
International Conference on Applications and Techniques in Information Science (iCATIS2019), 19-23 Jan 2019, Dhaka,
Bangladesh
Fig. 6. Interface in front of the driver seat.
Fig. 7. Email alerts to responsible persons.
VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper, we have accomplished our proposition, an IoT
based smart system which may help decrease the number of
deaths by accident. Undeniably, our provided solution has
many advantages over traditional systems. Reliability and
maintainability of the system are robust. That is, the system
is available and functional throughout the day. The reason
behind its robustness is the continuous alert and notification
function of an IoT device.
Our future vision is to enhance the system so that it suits
vehicle of all type or model. GPS module can easily be
added to our system which will improve email alert system.
GPS module is easy to configure in this proposed system
without changing much. This facility will help in road side
data mining. As a result, an alert message can be sent to the
ambulance service and the police station near that accident
spot. Henceforth, the performance of the system will
definitely increase in upcoming versions.
REFERENCES
[1] “Road Traffic Injuries”, World Health Organization (WHO), [Onine],
Available : https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-
traffic-injuries
[2] Prabha, R.Sunitha , R.Anitha “Automatic Vehicle Accident Detection
and Messaging System Using GSM and GPS Modem” - International
Journal of Advanced Research in Electrical, Electronics and
Instrumentation Engineering, Vol. 3, Issue 7, July 2014.
[3] Elie Nasr, Elie Kfoury, David Khoury “An IoT Approach to Vehicle
Accident Detection, Reporting, and Navigation” – 2016 IEEE
International Multidisciplinary Conference on Engineering
Technology.
[4] Vijay Savania, Hardik Agravata and Dhrumil Patela “Alcohol
Detection and Accident Prevention of Vehicle” - International Journal
of Innovative and Emerging Research in Engineering Volume 2, Issue
3, 2015.
[5] Md. Syedul Amin, Jubayer Jalil, M. B. I. Reaz “Accident Detection
and Reporting System using GPS, GPRS and GSM Technology” –
IEEE/OSAIAPR International Conference on Informatics, Electronics
and Vision.
[6] Sarasvathi, Nahalingham and Fong, Jason Zu XiN (2018) “Study and
Implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) Based Vehicle Safety
Alert and Tracking System” - INTI Journal, 1 (10). pp. 1-11. ISSN
e2600-7920.
[7] “How manual gearboxes work”, www.howcarswork.com, [Online]
Available : https://www.howacarworks.com/basics/how-manual-
gearboxes-work
[8] “How the braking system works”, www.howcarworks.com, [Online]
Availabe : https://www.howacarworks.com/basics/how-the-braking-
system-works
