The Times of India | Adarsh Jain | TNN | Oct 19, 2016 |

COIMBATORE: Students of Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College in Coimbatore have designed a device to track college buses and ambulances.  Two final year students of the computer science department, Navaneeth R S and Hariprasath P, have designed a device called – Track ur spot. “The device is fixed in the vehicle, and it provides you a range of data based on GPS and related technologies. We can track the position of the vehicle, speed, and time taken to travel a distance,” the staff mentor of the project, G Rathi said.  When Navaneeth and Hariprasath were in their third year, the idea of tracking their college buses struck them. “So, they carried out some research and found that some taxi and auto rickshaw services were using GPS to track their cabs. But, we had a different application, and we wanted to take this to a new level where safety was also a concern,” the assistant professor with the computer science and engineering department said.

“The technology is a blend of electronic sensors and devices and software analytics. Ramakrishna has many educational institutions and a lot of students use the college transport to commute to college and back home,” said Navaneeth. “Students can check if their bus is arriving at their stop on time. If not, they can find out about the next bus on the route, and at the same time complain to the college management,” he said. If there is a delay in reaching a stop, it will automatically send alerts to the college management,” the student said.  The device also uses geo-sensing technology. “In case, if the driver exceeds the geographical boundaries, the system will send an alert to the college,” Hariprasath said, “The system will enable the management to track performance of the drivers on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. Overspeeding alerts will also be sent to the management.”   The device is connected to the user account either on the website or on the android application. “Data analytics can be seen in the form of graphics here,” said Rathi. The staff mentor said that it took about a year for the students to come out with the final device. “Being computer science students they only had the advantage of software knowledge. But the hardware- both electronics and design of the device was a challenge. Continuous research and trials led to the successful outcome,” Rathi said. “The device was first tested on a college bus, then on five ambulances. Now, it will be installed on all 50 vehicles of the SNR Trust. We will soon be applying for a patent,” Rathi said.   –  Courtesy