Application of information technologies and microprocessor equipment for reducing the number of road accidents

Abstract

Problems. Overcoming the consequences of road accidents places a heavy burden on the country's health care and social services. The International Transport Forum has prepared a report "Striving for Zero: High Challenges and a Systemic Approach to Road Safety". The forum experts consider driving while intoxicated one of the key problems in the growing number of road accidents, and the use of information technology is one of the ways to reduce the number of accidents. Goal. On the basis of the conducted analysis the purpose of research which consists in creation of a way and the device for impossibility of driving of vehicles by drunk drivers is formulated. Tasks: 1. To formulate the concept of improving road safety in Ukraine in terms of preventing drunk drivers from driving; 2. To develop the functional scheme of the device for anti-alcohol blocking of vehicles; 3. To develop a schematic diagram of such a device; 4. To collect and test a full-scale sample of the device in the laboratory for experimental confirmation of the efficiency of the proposed method. Methodology. The analytical method was used – the study of existing systems that do not allow drivers to drive while intoxicated and the method of synthesis - the creation of a block diagram of a new system based on the advantages and disadvantages of the analyzed systems. Results. When creating a method of a device to prevent driving a vehicle, an analysis of existing methods and devices for forcible restriction of driving under the influence of drinks was made, which showed the lack of solutions to this problem in Ukraine at the moment. We have developed a method of improving safety in transport, based on the unconditional impossibility of driving under the influence of drunk drivers and developed its block diagram. A functional diagram of an anti-alcohol blocking device for the implementation of the proposed method on modern cars, which requires changes in their software, has also been developed. An electrical circuit of the locking device for vehicles based on the Arduino microprocessor platform has been developed. Using Arduino allows the developer to assemble the device with the desired properties and independently program the microprocessor to perform the desired actions in a given sequence. As a result, an anti-alcohol blocking device was assembled, programmed and experimentally tested. Experimental testing in conditions as close as possible to real (car starter and battery) showed that the developed device disconnects the starter from the power supply in the presence of a given amount of alcohol in the air. Practical value. The practical significance of the developed method of improving transport safety, which makes it impossible for drunk drivers to drive vehicles, is the possible savings for the state of Ukraine of about twenty billion hryvnias, which are spent each year on the consequences of road accidents. But the most important thing is the lives saved, which cannot be estimated in hryvnias or dollars.

Key words: Arduino platform, information technologies, reduction of accidents on highways, microprocessor systems, microprocessor programming.