Navecure

Posted on by mxm1605

Team Name

Visionary

Timeline

Fall 2022 – Spring 2023

Students

  • Ankit Jha
  • Jaidyn Matamoros
  • Marium Mannan
  • Mohammed Rayed
  • Carlos Uresti Sifuentes

Abstract

Every day, distracted driving causes the death of approximately 9 people in the United States [1]. When coupled with other types of accidents, this may also result in delays in providing assistance to distressed drivers. To address this issue, Team Visionary has developed Navecure, a solution that has the potential to reduce the number of fatalities caused by distracted driving and related accidents.

Background

Vehicle transportation is a necessary aspect of life for many of us. However, it can also be seen as a dangerous endeavor. In the United States alone, there are over 5 million car accidents annually [2], with many caused by drivers who are distracted, drowsy, or under the influence. Despite being up to the driver’s discretion, it is challenging to monitor their current driving abilities, which can put themselves and others at risk. While some apps can track a car’s speed and performance, nothing on the market today can analyze the driver and assist them in real-time. Combined with this other medical emergencies are an unexpected but ever-present threat that may prevent the driver from calling for help or navigating to safety. Navecure aims to address this issue by alerting and assisting distracted drivers as well as providing an additional method for contacting help during a medical emergency and guiding them to safety.

Project Requirements

  1. The system must use facial tracking, speech recognition, and health monitoring to make sure the driver is safe.
  2. An Android application must be used as an interface between the different components and the driver.
  3. Distracted drivers must be alerted by the system in a proper manner so they regain control of the vehicle.
  4. The facial recognition module must track the driver’s face and relative screen placement to calculate if the driver is paying attention to the road.
  5. The auditory command (speech recognition) module must use a microphone to listen for distress signals from the driver.
  6. The system must be able to inform specific authorities and take action such as calling 911 whenever distress is identified.
  7. The health monitoring modules must use a combination of sensors such as an EKG sensor to determine driver’s hand are on the steering wheel and take necessary actions.
  8. The system must be reliable and accurate to ensure the safety of the driver and others on the road.
  9. The system must be designed to be non-intrusive and minimize distractions for the driver.
  10. The system must be easy to use and accessible for all drivers, regardless of age or technical ability.

System Overview

Navecure has two main components that define what this product is and what it does. It involves the hardware components (machine vision camera, EKG sensor, and bluetooth arduino) and software component (phone application) for user interaction. Navecure’s main goal is affordability to increase the reach of the product and make it accessible to the general public. Additionally, the system can be used by car manufacturers and dealerships to come pre-integrated with these additional safety precautions. The purpose of this system is to help the driver remain more aware, alert, and safe then they would otherwise normally be on the road.

Results

This interface shows a driver facing the road while driving. It measures the speed and uses bluetooth connection to connect hardware components to the software.
The application detects when the driver is not looking towards the road. If the driver is being inattentive for too long, the application will update the homepage icon to reflect that the driver has not been found, as well as play an alert bell. If the driver continues to not be found, it will ask them if they need any assistance
This page is the profile section. This is where the user will input their information when they initially sign in to the application. It is important to have this information filled out before use, as the application will pull from this information if there was an emergency.
If there was a major sudden movement sensed by the application, it will ask the driver if they need any assistance. Continued failure to respond could mean that the driver may be unconscious from a crash, so it will automatically send out a distress signal with their saved profile information and current location. This will allow the application to get their driver help, when they can not do so themselves.

Future Work

Due to limitations in time and resources the system could not be tested with general drivers in physical vehicles. Future iterations of the project should involve thorough user testing and integrations with standard vehicles.

Furthermore, a possible direction for Navecure could be to integrate our features, improve upon them, and convert this into a safety navigation application. Converting this into the “safest navigation app you can use” has some serious potential.

Project Files

Project Charter (link)

System Requirements Specification (link)

Architectural Design Specification (link)

Detailed Design Specification (link)

Poster (link)

Demo Video

Source Code & Documentation

You can view all the source code files and documentation for this project on our GitHub link

References

[1] National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Ncsa publications & data requests, 2019.

[2] Texas Department of Transportation. (n.d.). Motor Vehicle Crash Statistics. https://www.txdot.gov/data-maps/crash-reports-records/motor-vehicle-crash-statistics.html

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