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Smart Riding with IoT Helmet: A Step Towards Road Safety

Chapter · March 2023

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-27524-1_54

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 Smart Riding with IoT Helmet: A Step Towards
Road Safety

Chiranjib Kalita and Kuntala Boruah(B)

School of Innovation Technology, Assam Rajiv Gandhi University of Cooperative Management,

Sivasagar, Assam, India
[email protected]

Abstract. The majority of the younger population is rapidly choosing two-

wheelers as their preferred mode of transportation since they frequently link riding
with excitement and adventure. Even while its popularity is growing, it is still one
of the most dangerous forms of communication. Numerous accidents are reported
each year as a result of excessive speeding, hasty overtakes, drunk driving, and
poor visibility during bad weather. Compared to a car crash, there is a substantially
higher chance of fatalities in case of a bike accident since riders are more likely to
sustain life-threatening injuries like head trauma. Therefore, a smart helmet model
based on the Internet of Things (IoT) is suggested to overcome the aforementioned
issues. In order to handle the input data that are gathered with the aid of various
sensors, an Arduino Uno is employed as a microcontroller. The smart helmet
prototype has a cost-effective, straightforward, and consistent alcohol detection
feature, an over speed alarm feature, and an obstacle detection feature.

Keywords: IoT · smart helmet · alcohol detection · speed tracking · obstacle

detection · Arduino Uno

1 Introduction
Road accidents claim thousands of lives each year. According to a study, a passenger in
a car has a death rate in a crash that is nearly 30 times lower than that of a motorcyclist
[1]. Such deaths frequently result from head injuries, which are completely preventable
by just wearing a helmet. The government uses a number of awareness initiatives and
financial penalties to encourage helmet use. Despite all efforts, it is hard to consistently
monitor helmet use. Another significant factor in bike accidents is drunk riding. Envi-
ronmental factors like foggy weather can occasionally reduce a rider’s visibility and
increase the risk of an accident. Since most bikers are young, they frequently fail to see
the importance of using safety equipment like helmets.
Since the Internet of Things (IoT) was introduced in 1999 [2], numerous application
fields have used this cutting-edge technology to enhance the offerings of industries
and sectors like health care, agriculture, and smart cities [3–6], among others. Another
expanding area of application that has been successful in drawing several researchers
over the past ten years is the smart helmet [7–14]. Fig 1 shows a bar chart that represents

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

A. Abraham et al. (Eds.): SoCPaR 2022, LNNS 648, pp. 571–580, 2023.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27524-1_54
572 C. Kalita and K. Boruah

the trend in academic publication over the course of the previous 11 years, or from 2009
to 2021 [15]. It is clear that after 2013, the pace of publication began to steadily increase,
and after 2017, the number significantly increased. This rising trend suggests that the
market for IoT-based smart helmets is now seeing enormous growth. The condensed
summary of recent developments is shown in Table 1.

40
publicaƟon
30
No of

20
10
0

Fig. 1. The trend of academic publications over the course of years from 2009 to 2021

Table 1. The condensed summary of recent developments

Year Author Microcontroller Sensors /Detectable parameter

2013 Rasli et al. [16] PIC16F84a – Speed sensor
– Head detection sensor
– Force Sensing Resistor
2015 Nitin Agarwal et al. [17] Intel8051 – Helmet wear detection
2016 Jadhawar et al .[18] Atmega 16 – IR sensor
– PIR sensor
– Alcohol sensor
2018 Deva Kumar et al. [19] ATMEGA16L – Head detection
2019 S.B. Joshi and A.S. Joshi [20] PIC – Alcohol sensor
– Speed sensor
– head detection
2019 P.P. Namayala [21] NodeMCU – helmet wear detection
– alcohol detection
2019 Wong et al.[22] – Head alignment detection
2019 Kinage and Patil [23] NodeMCU – Alcohol detection
– Speed detection
– Drowsiness detection
2020 Lakshmanachari and Ramya [24] NodeMCU – Helmet detection
– Alcohol detection
– Speed detection
– Accident detection
2020 Merlin and Pranay [25] NodeMCU – Helmet wear detection

The authors described how the smart helmet model was designed and put into practise
in this publication. Before the rider puts on the helmet, the bike’s engine will not start.
 Smart Riding with IoT Helmet: A Step Towards Road Safety 573

Additionally, once the helmet circuit is activated, the alcohol sensor in the device will
continuously monitor the rider’s blood alcohol content. The bike’s engine would imme-
diately shut off before taking off the accelerator if a high alcohol level was detected. The
bike is allowed to take off only if both requirements are met. Other safety features, such
as overspeed warning, overtaking/obstacle indicator, and engine temperature indication
function, are also included. According to the authors’ knowledge, no previous models
have included the special feature of obstacle detection [10, 15, 27–30]. It is anticipated
that the obstacle recognition capability will lessen the number of incidents that occur
when it is hazy and difficult to see the path. The bike is alerted to any hazard within a
certain range using ultrasonic sensors.
The rest of this article is organised as follows. The motivation and problem statement
are explored in Sect. 2. The analysis of features that can be obtained using IoT technology
is covered in Sect. 3. Sections 4 and 5 detail the creation of the smart helmet and its
design. In subsequent sections, the findings and analysis are highlighted. The conclusion
includes a discussion on the future direction.

2 Motivations and Problem Statement

Due to the issue of increased traffic congestion, rising fuel prices, a decrease in the
number of available parking spaces, and expensive maintenance costs, motorcycles are
becoming more and more popular in comparison to four-wheelers nowadays. However, a
two-wheeler accident has a substantially greater fatality rate than a four-wheeler accident
[1]. The fact that most of the teenagers prefer bike riders which in turn adds to the parents’
anxiety. India has a large youth population, thus maintaining their health and safety is
crucial. The major goal of the project is to create a low-cost smart helmet that can detect
alcohol intake, helmet use, excessive speed, engine overheating, and nearby obstacle in
order to prevent accidents. An OLED screen, which will be placed close to the odometer,
will show all the information.

3 Investigation of Features

There are a number of characteristics that can be added to the typical biking experience
to increase safety and conformability. In general, there are two subcategories of features:
life-saving features and experience-improving features.
(1) Life Saving Features

1.1. Alcohol Detection. The MQ3 Alcohol Sensor is used to measure the alcohol con-
tent. It is positioned within the helmet next to the rider’s mouth. The sensor will period-
ically scan each breath taken by the rider to look for alcohol. Only if the alcohol level is
below the threshold level will the system permit the bike engine to fire up.

1.2. Speed Detection. IR proximity sensor is installed close to the alloy wheel. It will
trigger the buzzer if the speed reaches beyond the threshold value in the prototype. The
buzzer will beep with annoying sound continuously until the rider slows down the speed.
574 C. Kalita and K. Boruah

1.3. Obstacle Detection. To detect any vehicles trying to overtake, two ultrasonic sen-
sors are used which are placed near the front headlight and on the backside of the bike.
The sensors would detect any object in front or behind the bike within a preset range.
This feature will also help during foggy weather where the visibility is not good. In the
prototype the range of ultrasonic sensor is set at 250 cm.

(2) Experience Enhancing Features

2.1. Bluetooth Call Receiving Feature. The prototype model comes equipped with a
Bluetooth call receiver so that it can take any incoming call without getting distracted.

2.2. Engine Temperature. Riding for too long is dangerous for both the rider and the
engine. In order to detect engine temperature, a temperature sensor is utilized and is
mounted close to the engine. A buzzer will alert the rider if the temperature exceeds a
specified threshold. The prototype has a 30 °C threshold temperature.

4 System Design and Implementation

The suggested Internet of Things helmet is built with an Arduino UNO microcontroller
and a number of other sensors to monitor a variety of riding-related events. A switch that
can only be activated by the rider’s head applying pressure while wearing the helmet
has been fitted inside the helmet. Only when the switch is in the "on" position is the
motorcycle engine capable of being ignited. All additional sensors are initialised and
begin monitoring the parameters as soon as the bike is started. For the purpose of detecting
alcohol in breadth, a MQ-3 sensor is mounted inside the helmet close to the mouth.
When the rider is warned and the alcohol concentration approaches the threshold, the
engine shuts down automatically. To detect other cars attempting to pass within a certain
distance, the bike has two Ultrasonic sensors fitted on the front and back. Once more, a
proximity sensor is located next to the front tyre and is in charge of detecting bike speed.
A buzzer will begin to beep if the wheel in the prototype is moving at a speed greater
than 1800 km/h. For the purpose of measuring engine temperature, a DHT11 is placed
nearby. Long periods of uninterrupted riding could damage the engine. So, an OLED
panel shows the engine temperature. The rider can readily view the OLED panel, which
is situated above the fuel tank, and it will also provide information like the alcohol level,
engine temperature, and vehicle RPM. The proposed model’s block diagram is shown
in Fig. 2.
 Smart Riding with IoT Helmet: A Step Towards Road Safety 575

Fig. 2. Block diagram of the proposed smart helmet system

The algorithm of the overall process: -

STEP 1: START
STEP 2: Check if the rider is wearing helmet or not?
STEP 3: IF YES, check if rider has consumed alcohol beyond the set limit?
STEP 4: IF alcohol level is low, allow the ignition of the bike.
STEP 5: ELSE IF bike is not allowed to start and go to step 3.
STEP 6: INITIALISE all the other sensors to read the relevant data.
STEP 7: DISPLAY the data in OLED screen and continue riding.
STEP 8: IF OVERSPEED is detected, alert the rider and go to STEP 6.
STEP 9: IF OBSTRACLE is detected, alert the rider and go to STEP 6.
STEP 10: IF ENGINE OVERHEATING is detected, alert the rider and go to STEP 6.
STEP 11: END
576 C. Kalita and K. Boruah

The flow chart representation of the proposed model is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Flow chart representation of the smart helmet model

4.1 Requirements for the Model

Software Requirements -

• Windows 10 64-bit Operating System

• Arduino IDE
• Libraries for the sensors

Hardware Requirements -

• I3 CPU @ 2.0GHz
 Smart Riding with IoT Helmet: A Step Towards Road Safety 577

• Minimum 4 GB RAM and 5 GB of Hard disk Storage.

• Arduino UNO
• OLED Screen (1.3 )
• LED Bulb
• Buzzer
• Relay
• DHT11 (Temperature Sensor)
• Ultrasonic Sensor (Distance)
• IR Proximity Sensor (Speed)
• MQ-3 Sensor (Alcohol)
• 9v Battery
• Click Switch
• Slide Switch

The circuit diagram for the suggested smart helmet system is shown in Fig. 4. Figure 5
depicts the similar prototype. To minimise problems, the motorcycle’s engine is sym-
bolised as a “Fan” It is predicated on the idea that if a fan can be turned on and off, then
a motor can be turned on and off by swapping out the fan for a motor.

Fig. 4. Circuit diagram of smart helmet system

5 Result and Discussion

The proposed model is implemented at very low cost and is very easy to install. Whenever
the switch inside the helmet is not pressed, the engine doesn’t get started therefore the
wearing of helmet is compulsory. Also, when alcohol is sensed by the sensor, the engine
automatically turns OFF. Whenever the biker over-speeding, an alert is generated to
bring the attention of the biker. Table 2 shows the summary of the functionality of the
prototype for some give instances. In the testing phase the authors have considered
threshold temperature, alcohol as 300C, 570ppm. During real life implementation, the
threshold levels can be calibrated accordingly. Figure 6 shows the prototype of the model
with the OLED display.
578 C. Kalita and K. Boruah

Fig. 5. Prototype of the smart helmet setup

Table 2. Demonstrates the values of some permeates and the actions taken

Helmet MQ-3 (ppm) DHT11 (°C) IR Proximity Engine OLED display and alert
sensor (RPM)
YES 590 – – Can’t start Don’t DRINK
the engine
YES 40 – – Start Ignition Safe riding
YES 50 27 1900 ON Drive slowly
Buzzer on
YES 40 40 1200 ON Engine over heat
Take rest
No 10 27 1300 Ignition off Wear helmet

Fig. 6. Working prototype with the display unit

 Smart Riding with IoT Helmet: A Step Towards Road Safety 579

6 Conclusion and Future Scope

The goal of the smart helmet is to improve the riders’ overall experience while also
ensuring safety. The wearing of the helmet when riding is required at all times, and
this is given top attention. To do this, the configuration of the helmet and the bike are
coordinated in such a way that the bike engine cannot be started without the helmet
on. Second, an alcohol sensor that monitors the rider’s blood alcohol level is included
to combat the problem of drunk driving. The bike engine will shut off automatically
if the alcohol concentration is above the threshold. To detect any obstruction within
the rider’s set range, other capabilities like obstacle detection in foggy weather are
also implemented. Additionally, the system is equipped with over speeding and engine
temperature detecting features. The proposed model was implemented by the authors,
but it has not yet been tried out in actual riding situations.
Future enhancements will include things like renewable power sources, automated
SMS alert and AI based traffic route advisor. In future instead of using battery system to
power the circuit, solar rechargeable system could be incorporated. In cities with high
traffic, AI enabled navigation system could be incorporated.

Acknowledgements. The authors would like to acknowledge Assam Rajiv Gandhi University
of Cooperative Management (ARGUCOM), Sivasagar for providing necessary facilities for the
research work.

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