Final year Engineering students develop a Car Accident Prevention System
The two, Innocent Matchipisa, an Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering student and Marumbo Sichinga, an Electronics and Computer Engineering student teamed up to develop a system dubbed Accident Prevention.
The system aims at preventing accidents by monitoring the drowsiness and drunkenness of the driver through the use of a Camera, GPS monitor and Alcohol sensor. When a person is drunk, the sensor senses the alcohol, which then transmits a signal to the car to reduce speed. If it happens that the drunken driver is about to start the engine the car does not at all start.
However, in the case that a driver is dosing the camera is able to detect the rate at which the driver is blinking hence the car is able to reduce speed while beeping an alarm for the driver to wake up. If the driver does not wake up, then the car comes to a complete stop. The system has a Global Positioning System (GPS) and a messaging facility, which can be used to track the location of the car then send messages to relatives and workmates to come and help the driver.
The idea of the system came two years ago after Marumbo was involved in an accident. It took 4 months to develop it as a final year project and has won the Malawi Innovators Design Competition in the category of Most Technically Challenging Innovation. The Faculty of Engineering organized the competition with the support from Rice 360 University.