Collision Avoidance using IoT

Shiv Swarup1*, Shreyas M.S.2, Saathvik R. Khatavkar3, Varun H.H. 4, Rama Satish K. V.5
1
Department of Electronics and Communication, RNS Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, India
5
Department of Master of Computer Applications, RNS Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, India

e-mail: 1 mail2shivswarup@gmail.com, 2shreyasrao18@gmail.com, 3saathvikrk007@gmail.com, 4varunharish98@gmail.com,

5
satishkvr@gmail.com

Abstract—Vehicular collisions are one of the major sources of deaths and injuries. The number of accidents are increasing at a
high rate and the main objective of this paper revolves around the solution to the vehicular collisions using IoT. The concept of
IoT in the field of vehicular automation is continuously evolving day by day and the development of Smart vehicles has
reduced the number of collisions. This paper mainly aims at enabling wireless communication between the vehicles through
IoT and thereby reducing the probability of vehicular collision by the help of Braitenberg and modified Braitenberg algorithm.
Braitenberg vehicles are a special class of autonomous agents which are embodied systems that behave in real world without
any human control. This paper approaches the ideas of Braitenberg algorithm which is reactive when it perceives the sensory
information and helps in collision avoidance. The results showed the enhanced performance of the smart vehicles based on
results from the simulator Vrep.

Keywords—Internet of Things(IoT) , Vrep, Pioneer, Ultrasonic sensor, Wireless transceiver, Braitenberg Algorithm
I. INTRODUCTION
T he Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology
rendering connectivity. It can be referred as
interconnection of various devices to form a network, which
can virtually communicate with each other and actuates
accordingly. IoT encompasses many different outlooks of life
ranging from homes and cities to automobiles and roads.
Collision Avoidance using IoT is one of the automotive
applications of IoT. The parameters that can be taken into
considerations in automotive application for collision
between vehicles are “Object Detection” and “Obstacle
Detection”.
Most of the road accidents occurring nowadays are due to
the human error. In case of human driving, eyes act as a
sensor and take the input from the real world and provide it
to the brain. Further the brain processes this and based on the
obstacle, it sends a backsignal to apply the brakes
accordingly. The response of the driver to the obstacle should
be immediate, else it leads to collision.
In the world, we live there is an increase in demand for
smart and connected vehicles. Autonomous driving has been
a field in which continuous researches are taking place i.e.
driving can take place without human or with less human
efforts. In this process, “Advanced Driver Assistance System
(ADAS)” helps the driver in safeguarding from vehicular
collisions. Thus it is developed to automate, adapt and
enhance vehicle systems for safety and better driving.Many
algorithms have been developed in order to avoid
collision,thereby alerting the driver or avoiding the collision
by taking control over the vehicle.
"Braitenberg” algorithm is one of the them used for
collision avoidance. In this paper, the main aim is to modify
Braitenberg algorithm in order to avoid collision between
vehicles at the crossover junction by communicating priorly
when they are approaching the same crossover junction.
Section I contains a brief introduction to collision avoidance,
Section II contains the software and hardware requirements,
Section III contains the simulated results and discussions,
Section IV contain the conclusions and future improvements
that can be implemented.
II. HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
a. Vrep
V-Rep is the simulator tool that stands for Virtual Robot
Experimentation Platform. It was developed by Coppelia
Robotics which is an Integrated Development Environment
based open source. It also provides a platform for Robotic
simulations which includes Lua based libraries for all the
components. V-Rep can also be coded using C, C++, Python,
Lua, MATLAB, and Octave.
b. Lua
Lua is light weight, multi-paradigm programming
language specially designed for embedded application. This
scripting language was developed in 1993 by Robert
Lerusalimschy and mainly focuses on improving the speed,
extensibility, portability and ease of use in development. Lua
is a cross platform, since the interpreter of compiled byte
code is written in ANSI C.
c. Pioneer
The Pioneer P3-DX is a compact differential-drive
mobile robot which integrates Ultrasonic sensors as shown in
Fig.1.It consists of 16 sensors out of which 8 sensors exist in
the front and rear end respectively. It is a programmable
mobile robot which includes a high-precision motion
controller and has capability of avoiding obstacles by
Braitenberg algorithm.
 left four sensors are connected to left motor and right four
are connected to right motor.
Consider crossing of two roads in which the vehicles are
approaching the same crossover point from two different
directions as in Fig.5a. Let the two vehicles be V1 and V2 as
shown in Fig.4. Let the speed at which Vehicle V1 is
Fig.1 Pioneer P3-DX Robot travelling be S1 and speed at which vehicle V2 travelling be
S2. Let us assume that speed of the second vehicle to be
d. Ultrasonic sensor higher than the first i.e. S2>S1.
Ultrasonic sensor is one of the sensors available for
detection of objects. The HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor consists
of transmitter, receiver and control circuit. It has four
different pins namely VCC, GND, Trigger and Echo pins as
shown in Fig.2. It sends a high-frequency ultrasonic sound
and the distance by calculated using the time interval
between sending of signal and receiving of echo. The
operating range of frequency is approximately 40kHz and
has distance up to 4m. It has high ranging accuracy and Fig.4 Schematic diagram
stable performance.
Fig.5a, Fig.5b and Fig.5c shows the simulated results of
Braitenberg algorithm in Vrep.

Fig.2Ultrasonic Sensor HC-SR04

e. Wireless Transceiver
Transceiver is a combination of both transmitter and
receiver in a single module as shown in Fig.3. The
NRF24L01 transceiver operates on a frequency of 2.4GHz Fig.5aTop view when vehicles approaching same
and has a range of 100m.Transfer of information takes place crossover junction
with baud rate from 250kbps up to 2Mbps wirelessly.

Fig.3 Wireless Transceiver

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Object detection is done by taking the sensor values from Fig.5b Top view when the vehicles are close to
the external world. Here, ultrasonic sensor is used in the crossover
Pioneer Robot in order to detect the object. The obstacle
detection is taken into account by the Braitenberg Algorithm
and its modified version.
Collision avoidance between the vehicles can be avoided
by enabling communication between the vehicles. Here, in
real time situation, the vehicles are analogous to Pioneer
P3DX Robot. Their sensors are analogous to Camera, Lidar
and so on. Here, Vrep is the simulator used to demonstrate
Collision avoidance using IoT.
According to Braitenberg Algorithm, the sensor is directly
coupled to the motor and based on the sensor input, the
motor is being controlled. As per the algorithm, Pioneer
Fig.5cTop view after application of Braitenberg
robot has four sensors that are connected to one wheel i.e. the algorithm
Braitenberg Algorithm takes care that the two vehicles are Fig.8a, Fig.8b and Fig.8c shows the simulated
not collided at the cross over. When the two vehicles come results of modified Braitenberg in Vrep.
closer to each other as shown in Fig.5b, the left four sensors
of vehicle V1 receives the data and the right four sensors of
vehicle V2 also receives the data simultaneously. It actuates
the motor in such a way that V1 tends to move right and V2
tends to move left as shown in Fig.5c and thus helps in
avoiding the collision between the two.
But if the vehicles need to continue the direction in which
they were travelling, modified Braitenberg algorithm must be
used. Accordingly, the two vehicles V1 and V2 are enabled
to communicate with each other using wireless transceiver as
shown in Fig.8a, thereby allowing one them to pass and
avoiding collision at crossover. Fig.8a Top view of vehicles with transceiver
The algorithm that is used in modified Braitenberg modules
algorithm is as shown in Fig.6

Fig.8b Top view when vehicle with less

speed stops and other continues

Fig.8c Top view when vehicles pass in respective

path after applying modified Braitenberg

The two parameters which play an important role in slowing

Since the speed of V2 is assumed to be more, it has
more priority than V1, thus allowing V2 to pass in its desired
path and then V1 continues in its path.
The two vehicles which are approaching the same crossover
communicate with the help of wireless transceiver about their
respective positions and speeds.
The distance of vehicles from crossover can be
calculated using the coordinates (x,y,z) by applying the
distance formula √(𝑥 2 + 𝑦 2 + 𝑧 2 ) metres. In such case the
modified algorithm will tend to stop one of the vehicles
allowing the other to pass as shown in Fig.8b
down one of the vehicle are:
1. The critical distance or the threshold distance from
crossover.
2. The relative speed at which both the vehicles are
approaching.
Usually the speed of the slower vehicle can be easily cut
down, thereby allowing the faster vehicle to pass without
collision and later continuing the slower vehicle's path as
shown in Fig.8c.

Collision avoidance is depicted and the simulation is done
using Vrep software. The main script() consist of parent
script() and child script(). Here, two parent scripts are for the
two vehicles. Each of the parent script has a child script. The
parent script is the Pioneer robot and the child script is a
transceiver as shown in Fig.7
Fig.7 Program script arrangements
IV. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE
Many Research and Development are continuously being
carried out in the field of automotive application of IoT.
This paper serves an important resource and has discussed the
application of IoT by connecting the different vehicles,
thereby reducing the number of accidents or collisions by
Collision Avoidance.
The major advantage over the conventional human based
driving system is that it provides quick response to obstacle
and has precise control of wheel. The proposed work has a
simple and an affordable algorithm to solve the problem of
vehicular collision. Thus helping in appropriate handling of
critical situation and minimizing the collision between
vehicles using IoT.
The advancement in this topic helps to build complex
algorithms based on which it can cause a revolution in the
field of automobiles.
This work can be further extended to include for all the
vehicles and thereby making it suitable for allpossible driving
environment.
New sensory systems are still being explored to help in
connectivity of vehicles; one of the connectivity can be V2V
(Vehicle to Vehicle) communication, GPS and so on. Camera,
ranging devices such as LIDAR, FMC-RADAR, Pulse
Doppler and so on can be used instead of ultrasonic sensor in
the automobiles for object detection.
If all vehicles are enabled with this technique, the usage of
traffic lights can be minimized thusallowing to save power. In
this process, Ambulance can be given more priority while
travelling on the roads,thereby helping in saving lives of
many.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper was supported by RNS Institute of Technology
(AICTE Approved, VTU Affiliated and NAAC 'A'
Accredited, Accredited by NBA 2018-21), Bangalore, India.
We are immensely grateful to Dr. M.K Venkatesha, Principal
at RNS Institute of Technology for his encouragement in
presenting the paper. We would like to show our gratitude to
Dr.Vipula Singh and Dr. N P Kavya for sharing their pearls of
wisdom with us during the course of this research, and we
thank our parents for their immense insights. We would also
like to thank Prof Rama Satish K.V and Prof. Roopa H.M
from the bottom of our hearts for their precious guidance and
for comments that greatly improved the paper. We are also
immensely grateful to our readers for their comments on this
topic of research.
REFERENCES
[1] Valentino Braitenberg, Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic
Psychology, 2nd ed., 1984.
[2] Dr. T V Prabhakar, Advanced IoT Applications- NPTEL online
course.
[3] Gunnar Gullstrand, Obstacle Avoidance for a mobile robot.
[4] Ralf Salomon, “Evolving and Optimizing Braitenberg Vehicles by
means of Evolution Strategies”.
[5] Avital Cohen, Luis Arce-Plevnik, Tamara Shor, “IoT IN Automotive
Industry: Connecting Cars,” Apr 2016.
[6] Anitha Kumar,Devika B S, “IOT BASED TECHNOLOGY IN
AUTOMOBILES,” e-ISSN: 2395-0056.
[7] Ramya D, Sujata, Devi Kamala Rathinam, Sherin J,Shilpa A,
“Collision control for Bikers using IoT”. International journal of
pure and applied mathematics, Volume 119. No 17, 2018
ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version).
Authors Profile
Mr.Shiv Swarup is presently persuing Bachelor of
Engineering in the Department of Electronics and
Communication from RNS Institute of Technology,
Bangalore since 2016. His area of interest is IoT
and working on different sensors.
Mr.Varun H.H. is presently persuing Bachelor
of Engineering in the Department of
Electronics and Communication from RNS Institute
of Technology, Bangalore since 2016. His area
of interest is IoT and Signal Processing.
Mr.Varun H.H. is presently persuing Bachelor
of Engineering in the Department of
Electronics and Communication from RNS Institute
of Technology, Bangalore since 2016. His area
of interest is IoT and Signal Processing.
Mr.Shiv Swarup is presently persuing Bachelor of
Engineering in the Department of Electronics and
Communication from RNS Institute of Technology,
Bangalore since 2016. His area of interest is IoT
and working on different sensors.