Four engineering students developed a prototype of a device which will lock the ignition system of your car and it will refuse to start on sensing the smell of liquor. All you have to do is install the sensor near the car dashboard.

The futuristic device named Sarathi, developed by Santosh S Malagi, Pruthviraj M, Ramachandra U and Vijaykumar H, all students of Kamala and Venkappa M Agadi College of Engineering and Technology, Laxmeshwar, will check drunken driving and alert drivers (if they have not worn seatbelts). The project was one of the 10 best selected as part of the annual pan-India innovation contest, QUEST Ingenium 2013, held in the city on Friday. As many as 1,410 students participated in the event.

Malagi said a large number of accidents occur and innocent lives are lost because the driver is in an inebriated state. “To avert such incidents, a sensor is placed close to the steering wheel (near the dashboard). When the sensor detects the smell of liquor, it will send a message to a memory card connected to the internet. The card will also send out information about the vehicle (registration details) to the law enforcement agencies and lock the ignition system.”

He said the system will use a controller area network (CAN) to link sensors and actuators for monitoring critical vehicle parameters like vehicle speed, engine speed, fuel economy, engine temperature and smoke emissions in real time.

Pruthviraj, another group member, said though warning systems exist to inform drivers about possible malfunctions, most of them are limited to high-end vehicles or have limited functions. He said, “At present, there is no way to alert the driver when he is exceeding the speed limit or when the coolant temperature has reached alarming levels.”

Ramachandra said aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) results in waste of fuel and brings down mileage by 33 per cent on highways and by 5 per cent on city roads. “The lack of a means to alert the driver about fuel waste was what motivated us to develop this model.”

Suggests right speed for mileage
The students’ system also suggests to the driver the right driving speed to obtain the best mileage out of his vehicle. Malagi said, “This data is made available to the driver via a digital instrument cluster, which helps the driver improve his driving habits.

“The driver will also be warned of a possible error or failure of a vehicle component so that preventive/corrective action can be taken at the earliest.”

Source: Bangalore Mirror