Soft guard gsm/gps based vehicle tracking system

Abstract

Soft-Guard is a vehicle surveillance system that effectively employs technology of GPS (Global Positioning System) and GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) to remotely track the vehicle and controls some of its functionality, even if the user is miles away from the vehicle. The system permits localization of the vehicle and transmitting the position to the owner on his mobile phone as a short message (SMS) at his request. The domain is not a new one there are a lot of vehicle-tracking systems available in the market which employ the GPS technology to track the vehicle. However those trackers are not user controlled, the owner of the car has to contact the company for finding out the location and has to request the company if the need arise (in case of theft) to shut down the car engine. This is problematic for the user as he has to first call the tracking company to find out the location of his car or to shut it down which is a hassle. Soft-Guard gives complete control over the tracking in the hands of the user; using GSM module in the tracker and his/her mobile handset the user will be able to communicate with and direct the tracker as required. The presented application is a low cost solution for tracking vehicle position and status in realtime, very useful in case of car theft situations and for monitoring adolescent drivers by their parents. Soft-Guard has been developed on Microcontroller (PIC18F542) that isconnected with a GSM module and a GPS receiver. It continuously takes datafrom GPS, extracts the location, updating the previous one every time. As soonas it receives an SMS, it breaks all its activities and handles the interrupt, i.e. it reads the SMS and responds of user commands. User commands are short and precise and have a definite format. The code is developed in MikroC (Compiler: MikroC PRO for PIC) and simulated in ISIS Proteus Professional. It is burnt into the Microcontroller that is connected on a training Kit for testing purposes. Software programming techniques, code optimization and modular design have been kept in mind during development. The code is thoroughly tested from unit to deployment level in order to remove bugs, improve user interaction and achieve efficiency and reliability. Thus, the main objective of this project is to develop a vehicle tracking system which can track and monitor the vehicle in the porch and on the roads alike. It also acts as an anti-theft system and prevents the car from getting stolen. The most significant objective of this project is to place absolute control of this system in the hands of the user whether they are inside the car or miles away from it; this will be done by adding the functionality of control using GSM technology and mobile phones.