Fuzzy Logic-Based Accident Detection System for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks: A Prototype Implementation

With increased vehicular traffic on roadways, traffic jams and accidents are common, leading to substantial social and financial losses. Early detection of roadway accidents is beneficial as help can be directed to the accident site quickly, saving the lives of the injured. With this goal, an intelligent accident detection system is proposed in this paper using a Vehicular Adhoc Network model. Each vehicle has an on-board unit with multiple sensors in the proposed work. Outputs of these sensors, which monitor the condition of the driver and the vehicle, are input to a fuzzy logic controller for quick detection of an accident. The proposed system is validated by designing and implementing a hardware prototype. When an accident is detected, the proposed hardware uses a low-range radio (LoRa) transceiver network to send messages to a central server. After receiving the message from a vehicle, the server can inform a nearby ambulance. It can also identify the shortest path to a nearby hospital using Dijkstra’s algorithm and inform the ambulance. This would facilitate timely treatment of the accident victim(s).