2021 7th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS)
Smart Characterization of Vehicle Impact and
Accident Reporting System
2021 7th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS) | 978-1-6654-0521-8/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICACCS51430.2021.9441797
Navin Kumar M
Department of ECE
Sri Krishna College o f Technology
Coimbatore, India
navinkumar. m@skct.edu.in
Premkumar R
Department of ECE
Sri Krishna College o f Technology
Coimbatore, India
17tuec 153 @skct. edu.in
Abstract—As the usage of motor vehicles is increasing
continuously, numerous deaths are caused due to road
accidents worldwide. An accident that occurs at a location
where no one is around to help will lead the victims to death
and the most accidents are fatal as a result of delayed medical
care. An accident may involve multiple victims and it is
important to provide the appropriate number of ambulances to
save all the victims. The primary aim of our project is to
overcome these problems and provide an optimal solution. Our
system uses four vibration sensors and a microcontroller to
detect the impact and identify if it is an accident or a minor
collision. When an accident occurs, this system determines
whether the accident is a rear-end collision, head-on collision,
rollover, t-bone impact or sandwich accident. Depending on the
type of accident, the number of ambulances required is
decided. Then the accident location is acquired using GPS
module and SMS warning is sent to the hospital using GSM
modem. The SMS is composed of the location, type of accident
and required number of ambulances. Our system facilitates
urgent emergency assistance to all accident victims in time.
Keywords—Impact characterization; Accident detection;
Vibration sensor; Microcontroller; GPS; GSM.
I. In t r o d u c t io n
The rapid growth in motorized vehicles without
appropriate progress in road safety has resulted in huge loss
of human lives. The use of cars has increased with the
growing population and this has led to increased traffic
dangers and road accidents that cause tremendous deaths
due to inadequate emergency facilities.
Though government and other organizations has taken
several efforts worldwide, accidents still take place
frequently. The major reason of fatality for children and
young people with age of 5 to 29 years is road traffic
collisions as reported by the World Health Organization.
Vehicle crashes results in enormous loss of human lives and
properties which cost 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
in many countries [1]. According to the statistics of the
National Crime Records Bureau, around 4.37 lakhs road
978-1-6654-0521-8/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE
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Pravin Kumar S
Department of ECE
Sri Krishna College o f Technology
Coimbatore, India
17tuec152@skct.edu.in
Navaneethakrishnan L
Department of ECE
Sri Krishna College o f Technology
Coimbatore, India
17tuec132@skct.edu.in
accidents were reported in 2019 throughout India, resulting
in the fatalities of 1.54 lakhs individuals and injuries to 4.39
lakhs people [2].
The perfect situation survive from an accident is that the
ambulances approach the incident location as quick as
possible but victims do not always have this opportunity in
practice. A lot of accidents happen in highways but high-
speed drivers neglect their responsibility to alert the police
or ambulance.
One of the reasons for the death of a person in an
accident is the unavailability of first aid due to inability of
emergency responders to collect accident details in time.
The emergency response time varies due to the detection
time, which depends on the vehicles in the crash, passing
information from drivers or witnesses. The identification
and reaction time are vital considerations to save the victims
of an accident. Just a minor change in reaction time may
change the number of deaths and monetary losses by an
immense amount. When it comes to road accidents, the
ambulance reaction time is highly significant as the safety of
drivers and passengers may be compromised. Sometimes the
number of ambulances sent to the incident place may not be
enough to rescue all the injured ones. Identifying the number
of vehicles involved in the crash would help to decide the
number of ambulances required to rescue the victims.
This paper proposes a system that can be fitted in a
vehicle which performs the determination of vehicle impact
type and decides whether the impact is just a minor collision
or an accident. If a minor collision takes place, it can be
taken care by the driver himself. If an accident is detected,
the buzzer raises beeping sound to alert vehicles that pass by
the incident place to accompany the injured persons. The
type of impact is identified based on the vibration levels
from the sensors in the system. Then the accident location
will be determined by GPS module and an SMS report is
sent to the hospital with the help of GSM demanding the
appropriate number of ambulances to rescue the victims.
This will help rescue all the injured persons in an accident
leaving nobody behind.
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II. Re l a t ed Wo r k There are also IoT based projects like [10] and [11] related to
There are several research articles regarding accident
detection and alerting strategies. Systems for monitoring,
identifying and informing traffic accidents have been built
and improved over a substantial period of time. These
systems concentrate on detecting and notifying the
emergency services in case of accident and therefore don’t
determine the actual number of ambulances required to
rescue all the victims. Although some articles propose
accident prevention mechanisms like [3] and [4] which may
minimize the chance of accidents, it may still happen
unexpectedly. The authors in [5] has implemented the
accident detection system in motor cycles.
In [6], the authors proposed a smart system which used
piezoelectric plate that detects accident if the vibration level
goes above a certain value. It uses gyroscope sensor for
accident identification in the event of significant vehicle tilt.
This system has Arduino board as the microcontroller. Then
the system waits few seconds for the victim to stop the alarm
and if the victim has not interrupted the alarm, the alerting
function will resume. Their system also has in-built sensor
which senses the rate of heart beat of the victim. The location
of crash is determined by GPS. Then, with the support of
GSM, SMS will be transmitted to healthcare service in case
of an accident.
The proposed system in [7] makes use of vibration sensor
that is present in the Electronic Control Unit for the airbag
system that is already available in most of the cars instead of
using a separate sensor. Arduino microcontroller is used as
the control unit of this system. When an impact occurs, the
impulse will trigger the buzzer to raise the sound indicating
that the accident is detected and the airbag will be deployed
as airbag sensors are coupled with the device. The position of
the car is located by the GPS. The GSM module will transmit
the accident information via SMS to the respective mobile
number.
In [8], the accelerometer sensor in the proposed system is
used to detect the car crash. The output values from the
accelerometer will be continuously monitored by the
Arduino UNO microcontroller. If the vehicle experiences a
sudden impact, the controller will perform the following
necessary actions. This Automatic Messaging System (AMS)
uses GPS to find the incident place. Once accident occurs,
the GPS co-ordinates are determined and SMS will be sent to
the mobile number of the victim’s friend which is already
saved in the system. The whole process is completely
automated.
The authors in [9] proposed a wireless accident detection
system. This accident monitoring and information notifying
system is intended for use in vehicles. The impact sensor
used in their system is the 3-axis accelerometer. It can be
used to evaluate the changing acceleration which may be
caused by vibration or motion. It makes use of PIC
microcontroller for performing required functions. Here,
dedicated Radio Frequency (RF) transmitter and RF receiver
are used for transmission of accident data wirelessly. These
RF modules can transmit or receive within a distance of 100
meters approximately. When the accelerometer sensor
produces an output that is above the threshold level, the RF
transmitter performs modulation and encode the accident
data and send it to the RF receiver. This receiver will
demodulate the received signal and decode the data. The
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final output from the receiver is shown in the LCD display.
crash detection mechanisms which uses Internet instead of
SMS to communicate the accident information. In [12], the
authors analyzed the performance of image processing
algorithms for detecting the accident in the images.
Accidents may happen in vehicles that transport raw
materials and commodities. One of the problems in this kind
of transportation which may lead to trouble is Vehicle
Routing Problem (VRP). The authors in [13] solved this
problem using their proposed algorithm.
III. Pr o po s e d Me t hodol ogy
A. Component description
• Microcontroller: It is the central processing unit of
the whole system. The Peripheral Interface
Controller (PIC) is used as the microcontroller in
the smart system. It is responsible for controlling
the input and output modules. The program code
which consists of instructions to run the system
will be uploaded in this microcontroller. When
power supply is given to the microcontroller, it
starts executing the uploaded instructions.
• Vibration sensor: It is used to monitor the
vibrations of the car. Four vibration sensors are
used in the system to sense the vibrations in four
sides of the car where the impact of accidents
usually happen.
• Buzzer: To raise the beeping sound continuously a
buzzer is used. This sound indicates that an
accident has occurred.
• GPS Receiver: The latitude and longitude position
of the car is determined by GPS receiver by
communicating with satellites. The co-ordinates of
the accident location can be tracked by GPS and
send it to the microcontroller.
• GSM Module: It is responsible for sending the
accident data from the smart system to the pre-
stored mobile number in the program. It forwards
SMS to the mobile number using the SIM card that
is inserted in the GSM module.
B. System description and Flow diagram
The design of the proposed smart system has about four
vibration sensors and GPS receiver as the input module. The
output module of the smart system consists of buzzer, LCD
display and GSM module. Mobile phone is the receiver of
the message that is sent by GSM module of the system as
shown in the block diagram figure 1.
As these sensors sense vibrations, they can be placed
inside four sides of the vehicle and it is not necessary that
they should be kept at the surface of the vehicle. The Flow
diagram in figure 3 shows how the flow of program works.
When the vehicle is turned on, the smart system is also
activated. The vibrations of the vehicle are continuously
monitored by the microcontroller. Unless the vibrations
exceed certain threshold value, the system performs
monitoring operation. If an impact occurs, the system will
continue the sensing work in case the it is just a slight
collision. When an accident takes place, the vibrations
surpass the threshold level and one or more sensors produce
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 2021 7th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS)
high output. Once the sensors indicate the accident, the
microcontroller triggers buzzer to produce sound that alert
the vehicles which are passing through the incident location.
The microcontroller decides the number of vehicles
involved based on the characterized type of accident. Using
this information, the required number ambulances is
decided. Then the present location of car is retrieved from
the GPS receiver and GSM sends SMS to the predefined
mobile. LCD display in the system also displays the output
after the microcontroller has completed all the necessary
actions.

Fig. 1 Diagram of working blocks in the smart system

The vibration sensors are placed in the vehicle as shown

in figure 2 which depicts the top view of a typical car.
Sensor 1 is placed at the front hood of the car. Sensor 2 and
Sensor 3 are positioned on the vertical pillars of cars on the
left and right side respectively which is present between the
doors of both sides of the car. Sensor 4 is placed at the rear
end of the car.

Fig. 3 Flow diagram of the smart system

C. Mechanism o f characterization o f vehicle impact

Fig. 2 Placement of Vibration sensors in a vehicle
Whenever there is an impact on the sensors, the
microcontroller will determine distinguish and determine
whether it is a minor collision or an accident with the help
of the vibrations from the sensors. If anyone of the sensors
sense medium level of impact, then it characterizes it as a
minor impact and does not proceed further. It again starts
monitoring the vibrations. In case the impact is an actual
accident and produce high level of vibration, then the
system will activate the buzzer to start producing the
beeping sound and begin determining the type of accident
and the number of vehicles involved.
If sensor 1 (refer fig. 2) which is present at the front
hood of vehicle sense high vibration, the impact is a head-on
accident. The vehicle could have crashed into an
obstacle which means one vehicle alone involved or it could
have collided with another vehicle which means two
vehicles are involved. As there is a chance that two vehicles

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 2021 7th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS)
could be engaged in accident two ambulances will be
requested. Even if an ambulance becomes a surplus, it is not
a problem because our focus is on saving human lives. If
sensor 4 at the rear end of the vehicle sense high vibration,
then it is an rear-end accident. In this type, two vehicles are
quite likely to be involved and so two ambulances will be
requested. If sensor 2 or sensor 3 at the sides of the vehicle
sense high vibration, then it is T -bone accident. In this type,
two vehicles are definitely involved and so two ambulances
will be requested. If high vibration is sensed by sensor 2 and
sensor 3 alternatively, then it is a rollover accident. In this
case, T-bone accident may have happened which means two
vehicles are engaged or the vehicles may have fallen from
high place. There is a chance that two vehicles may have
been in the accident, so two ambulances are requested. If
high vibration occurs at sensor 1 and sensor 4, then the
vehicle may have experienced sandwich accident which
involves three vehicles. Therefore, three ambulances are
requested. If any other combination of sensors sense high
vibration, then it is characterized as heavy accident and two
or more vehicles may have involved. So, three ambulances
will be requested to rescue the victims.

Fig. 5 Working prototype

Fig. 6 LCD output of accident type

Fig. 4 Smart characterization of vehicle impact

IV. Im p l e m e n t a t io n a n d Re s u l t s

The working prototype tests were successfully

conducted and outputs were obtained as expected.
Substantial tests have been carried out to test the output of
the system in different conditions. All the hardware
components were checked for correctness. The smart system
was able to run the program, characterize the type of impact,
Fig. 7 LCD output of GPS location
retrieve the GPS location and transmit SMS to mobile that is
predefined.

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 2021 7th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS)
The working model is depicted in the figure 5. The T-
bone accident at left side of the vehicle is taken as an
example. LCD display shows the short message that is sent
to the mobile number using GSM. Figure 7 depicts the
output of GPS location in the LCD display. Figure 8 shows
the SMS that was sent by the GSM of smart system to the
respective mobile.
V. Co n c l u s io n
The proposed system can be equipped with a vehicle for
safety of driver and passengers. This system performs all the
important functions automatically and no manual interaction
is necessary. It can be implemented to prevent delayed
emergency assistance which may increase the chance of
survival of the victim. This system is capable of identifying
the incident crash location and characterizing accident type
to determine how many vehicles are involved in the accident
which will be helpful to find the appropriate number of
ambulances needed to rescue all the injured persons as soon
as possible.
Further, the system components can be optimized to be
much more compact to fit into a vehicle. If the system is
incorporated in the vehicles by default, it will strive to be
essential in saving human lives.
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[9] R. K. Megalingam, R. Nammily Nair and S. Manoj Prakhya,
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[10] S. M. Gowri, P. Anitha, D. Srivaishnavi and M. Nithya, "Internet of
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[11] V. Kinage and P. Patil, "IoT Based Intelligent System For Vehicle
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[12] P. J. B. Princess, S. Silas and E. B. Rajsingh, "Performance Analysis
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