Car security and tracking system with position, route and speed calculation

2020 COE Engineering Design Project (VG02)

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Faculty Lab Coordinator

Vadim Geurkov

Topic Category

Embedded Systems

Preamble

The main purpose of the system is to protect vehicles. The system uses magnetic Hall-effect based chip which allows determining the location and speed of the vehicle. The vehicle contains a stand alone microcontroller based watch-dog timer, which triggers alarm software periodically unless it was reset by a car owner. The owner can reset watch-dog timer by encrypted key during predefined time using external keypad or a remote control. The alarm software triggered by watch-dog timer dials the predefined phone number using a cell-modem and sends an SMS message to the clients cell phone with parameters of time of entry and current GPS coordinates. It also sends warning message through the Internet. The series of messages with current coordinates can help to locate the stolen car. The cell-phone link with the car is bi-directional, so that the car microcontroller can be controlled from the remote PC-host and should be able to receive an SMS command to disable the car engine. The Car Security and Tracking System is also used to determine a route on the map being stored in the computer's memory. The route and GPS coordinates of the current car position are displayed on the LCD screen attached to the microcontroller, as well as, transmitted to the PC over wireless link (the route should be also displayed on the GUI interface of the PC). The system should be autonomous and be able to operate on an external battery during several hours.

Objective

(a) Design and development of a multifunctional reliable car security system with remote control; (b) Development of the system that calculates position and speed using a magnetic sensor, as well as a GPS sensor; (c) Investigate the methods of matching routes on the map with the current position of a car; (d) Development of a microcontroller based control system; (e) Interfacing with remote control device; (f) Preparation of technical documentation

Partial Specifications

- Power supply: 5V or 12V battery
- Tcl/Tk, Visual Basic or other GUI
- Control processor: ARM Cortex M4, Altera or Xilinx FPGA with an embedded ARM microcontroller

Suggested Approach

- Investigation of the magnetic Hall-effect ICs and GPS ICs
- Studying the operation and protocols for a cell phone or a two-way pager
- Study literature on microcontrollers

Group Responsibilities

Research literature, development of technical specifications of the system, design, implementation and testing of the system with the above objectives, preparing the thesis, project management.

Student A Responsibilities

Design of the hardware part, including electronic compass part, cell modem part and GPS part.

Student B Responsibilities

Design of the software part.

Student C Responsibilities

Design of the software for communication through the Internet, project management.

Student D Responsibilities

Investigation and possible use of the IoT link, project management.

Course Co-requisites

COE-328, COE-538

To ALL EDP Students

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, in the event University is not open for in-class/in-lab activities during the Winter term, your EDP topic specifications, requirements, implementations, and assessment methods will be adjusted by your FLCs at their discretion.