Downloaded from SAE International by Harbin Engineering University, Saturday, July 22, 2023

2020-28-0480 Published 25 Sep 2020

Motorist Warning System on Road Bends in Hilly

Regions for Safer Riding
Renold Elsen School of Mechanical Engineering-VIT

Jenitha Deepa Anna University

Citation: Elsen, R. and Deepa, J., “Motorist Warning System on Road Bends in Hilly Regions for Safer Riding,” SAE Technical Paper
2020-28-0480, 2020, doi:10.4271/2020-28-0480.

Abstract
regions are always filled with many hectic and endless curves.

S
afety is a major concern addressed in various industries
and most specifically in transportation industries.
Road accidents are undoubtedly more frequent and are
responsible for many permanent disabilities deaths worldwide.
Many works have been done to improve the safety of different
vehicles as the number of accidents is increasing. The main
objective of this work is to further improve road safety by
providing instantaneous warnings to drivers about hazards
in their intended path in hilly region. This further it aims to
provide a pleasant and peaceful hill travel and to avoid any
possibility of accidents in hill curves. The roads in these hilly
These curves are classified into Hair-Pin Curves, Salient
Curves and Re-entrant Curves. These curves offers partial or
no visibility about the incoming traffic for the drivers. In this
approach two ultrasonic sensors are used to obtain the velocity
and the distance of the object placed in the curves. The signals
from the two sensors are obtained, compared and the prob-
ability of the vehicles reaching the curves is predicted using
a simple algorithm with the help of Arduino UNO module.
Then the warning signals are provided to the lamps and thus
the drivers can be alerted by this approach the accidents can
be avoided effectively.

Keywords
Driving Safety, Hill Road Bends, Arduino Uno Module,
Ultrasonic Sensor, Automatic Warning Signals

Introduction
and by 2030 it is expected to be fifth leading cause for death

T
ransportation has made many thing possible in the worldwide. Accidents impose substantially 3% loss to GDP
development of mankind for many years now. Initially for India (1999-2000) and 30 % of all accidents on rural roads
transportation was done mostly for trade from ancient occurs at bends.
times with it the cultural exchanges happened. Now-a-days
it also plays a major role in the economy of an country. We as
 FIGURE 1   NCRB statics of accidents in curves on 2014.
an individual have moved to a stage where it plays a vital role
in our life and some have sentiment towards their vehicle.
Many people like to take an break from normal life by
engaging on an long ride. And, mostly people enjoy to drive
through the hilly areas to enjoy the beauty offered by the
nature and take pleasure in its quietness. Despite the
misleading serenity of the hills, the path is normally
hazardous, especially for the duration of the monsoon [1].
© SAE International and SAE India.

Road accidents are undoubtedly more frequent and are

responsible for many deaths worldwide. According to official
statistics [2] provided by National Crime Records Bureau
NCRB in 2015, 4,77,731 people injured and 1,41,526 persons
were killed in India in 2014 due to accidents in highways
Figure 1. These figures highlights the number of death toll
has continued to rise at about 70% a year over the past decade.
It is predicted in 2004 to be the ninth primary reason for death
 Downloaded from SAE International by Harbin Engineering University, Saturday, July 22, 2023
2 MOTORIST WARNING SYSTEM ON ROAD BENDS IN HILLY REGIONS FOR SAFER RIDING
 FIGURE 2   Reason for Accidents
© SAE International and SAE India.
More number of accidents is expected to takes place on
bends in hill station bend than that of the normal straight
road. The roads in these hilly regions are always filled with
many hectic and endless curves. In hilly regions of INDIA
the traffic accidents are due to poorly developed national
highways, poor infrastructure and unattended hazard zones
Figure 2 [3]. Such curves provide the drivers with minimal
or no-vision of the oncoming vehicles to the drivers [4]. As,
the prevention of road accidents is extremely important and
can’t be ensured by strict laws and enforcements. However,
the obligation of the drivers to adapt their speeds at risky
corners has to be the only solution for which driver assistance
system could serve the situation. A popular method found
in hill bends are just raised mirrors at the bends for the
drivers to see the reflection of the vehicle. Safety traffic
mirror can’t be used during rainy and foggy conditions [5,
6, 7]. A road safety device is proposed in this work which
can be extensively be used in hill roads are filled with many
hectic and endless curves. The drivers will be warned about
the incoming traffic in opposite direction. By this, it is
expected to reduce accident rates to provide a pleasant and
peaceful hill travel.
Methodology
Road traffic safety system refers to the combination of devices
used to prevent people from being killed or seriously injured
in road accidents [8]. Typical people affected by road acci-
dents include pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, vehicle passen-
gers, and passengers of on-road public transport [9]. One of
the important solutions for this problem can be the obligation
of the drivers to adapt their speeds at the corners. On this
regard a system is proposed and prototyped to warn drives
about the approaching traffic in hill curves by which the
safety of the commuters travelling is ensured. Also the
comfort and confidence to the drivers while maneuvering
the risky corners is established. A new novel approach is
developed by combining ultrasonic sensor and warning
signals with the help of Arduino UNO programmer.
Compared to other sensors like infrared sensor, magnetom-
eter sensor, high accuracy and desired result has been
produced by the ultrasonic sensor. The proof of concept of
the system is given in the Figure 3. The System has two pair
of sensors, which are placed on either side of the hairpin
bend. One pair of sensors are installed by the side of the uphill
 FIGURE 3   Proof of concept
© SAE International and SAE India.
side of the road, similarly another pair of sensors are installed
by the side of the downhill side of the road. The sensors are
mutually exclusive and are connected to Arduino UNO
through wires. The ultrasonic waves are emitted from the
sensors with a fixed frequency as shown in the Figure 3(a).
When a car approaches from the right hand side the car
reflects the ultrasonic waves back and this is picked by the
detector and then an indication is given in the left hand side
with an yellow signal as an warning (Figure 3(b)). An very
similar approach is adapted in the case when a car approached
from right hand side as shown in Figure 3(c). And finally
when both the vehicles approaches the corner the red signal
is given as an danger signal in the post as shown in Figure
3(d) to the drivers.
Proposed System Model
Initially 10 micro second trigger pulse are produced using
PWM of atmega328 and given to the two ultrasonic sensor
connected to arduino UNO. The Ultrasonic sensor transmits
eight 40 kHz pulses which is further used for detection of the
objects. The time taken by ultrasonic burst to leave and return
to sensor is used for finding the distance of the object from
sensor. The distance of the approaching objects are calculated
by using the Equation 1
Thigh × Vsound
D= (1)
2
Where D is the distance of the object, Thigh is the high
level time and Vsound is the velocity of sound in air (340 m/s2).
These sensors are placed in two poles and they connected
with the warning signal yellow LED and danger signal green
LED. These two poles are placed at the end of curve, visible to
the drivers. When there is no approaching vehicle a “0” signal
is returned by both the ultrasonic senor. The signal post is
kept off in this scenario to save power. Based on the output of
sensors, position of vehicles on either side of the bend is
detected which is provided as an input to the Arduino
Processor. The processor which works on a power supply of
 Downloaded from SAE International by Harbin Engineering University, Saturday, July 22, 2023

MOTORIST WARNING SYSTEM ON ROAD BENDS IN HILLY REGIONS FOR SAFER RIDING 3

 FIGURE 4   Block Diagram of the Proposed Model  FIGURE 6   Prototype of the system

© SAE International and SAE India.

© SAE International and SAE India.

testing. Further, field-testing can be implemented from the

real time prototype and the final modification can be done
from enhanced performance.
 FIGURE 5   Conceptual Test Setup The main components in the proposed actual system are
Arduino uno (atmega328), Ultrasonic sensor, connecting
wires, solar panel, battery (5V), signals for warning and Mild
Steel pipe (2.5 inches). The cad model of the working setup
was done using Fusion 360 as shown in Figure 7. The cost
for fabricating a single system is estimated (Table 1) to
be  Rupees Eleven thousand and three hundred and
seventy five.
© SAE International and SAE India.

The proposed system can be used for all road commuters

to avoid vehicle collision in turnings whereas in the existing
technology only the host car is warned. Also, it works at
various weather conditions - unlike safety traffic mirror which
cannot be  used only during rainy and foggy conditions.
Further, the comfort and confidence to the drivers while
maneuvering the risky corners are established. To add to it
the fabrication cost, assembly charge and installation costs
are very low.

5V triggers the warning LEDs to glow (and thereby intelli-

gently controlling the movement of vehicles at the bend.  FIGURE 7   Proposed setup
Warning LEDs along with a convex mirror are placed at the
centre of the outer curve of a hairpin bend. The layout of the
actual connection to be done with the electrical component
was developed and is given in the Figure 5.
The important aspect of the proposed work compared
very similar system is that it can predict the movement of the
actual object is towards the system or away from the system,
which is not the case in the other proposed models.

Prototype
© SAE International and SAE India.

Ultrasonic sensor senses toy car pushed manually and sends

the information to the controller board. Warning signal are
provide by the LEDs placed over a cone connected with the
controller board. The controller makes the warning signal
glows according to the objects distance. From Figure 6 it can
be observed that the red leds are glowing as the two toy cars
are pushed towards the mark made in the board. The proto-
type was found to be working successfully as indented in the
 Downloaded from SAE International by Harbin Engineering University, Saturday, July 22, 2023

4 MOTORIST WARNING SYSTEM ON ROAD BENDS IN HILLY REGIONS FOR SAFER RIDING

TABLE 1  Cost Estimate of the proposed system Systems in Rear-End Collisions,” IEEE Transactions on
Intelligent Transportation Systems 13(4):1546-1555, 2012.
RAW MATERIAL COST /UNIT
2. NCRB, Accidental Deaths, “Suicides in India—2014, 2011
G.I BOX (BATTERY AND 400
CONTROLLER HOUSING) National Crime Records Bureau,” Ministry of Home Affairs,
New Delhi 2111, 2015.
ULTRA SONIC SENSOR 1000
3. Cho, H., and Kim, B.W., “Performance Improvement of
SOLAR PANEL 4000
Collision Warning System on Curved Road Based on
BATTERY (10 AMP) 4200
Intervehicle Communication,” Mathematical Problems in
SIGNAL (RED AND YELLOW) 400 Engineering 2015, 2015.
M.S. PIPE 2.5 INCHES (Kg) 600 4. NHTSA, “Research Note 2010 Motor Vehicle Crashes:

© SAE International and SAE India.

M.S. ANGLE 1 INCH (Kg) 50 Overview,” U.S. Department of Transportation, Feb. 2012.
4 mm WIRE (m) 45 5. Hubele, N., and Kennedy, K., “Forward Collision Warning
PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD 400 System Impact,” Traffic Injury Prevention 19(Supp. 2):S78-
VOLTAGE REGULATOR 120 S83, 2018.
CLAMP AND ROOT (6 MM FLAT) 110 6. Lazarev, Y., Medres, C., Raty, J., and Bondarenko, A.,
RED OXIDE 25 LTS + PAINT 40 LTS 50 “Method of Assessment and Prediction of Temperature
Total in Rupees 11375 Conditions of Roadway Surfacing as a Factor of the Road
Safety,” Transportation Research Procedia 20(Sept. 2016):393-
400, 2017.
Conclusion 7. Pooja, P.R. and Hariharan, B., “An Early Warning System for
Traffic and Road Safety Hazards Using Collaborative Crowd
The prototype was developed and was found to work according Sourcing,” in Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE International
to the expected manner. There will be a decrease in accidents Conference on Communication and Signal Processing, ICCSP
2017, Jan. 2018, 1203-1206.
rate as the safety of the commuters travelling in hill region
will be ensured. By implementing this product it is expected 8. Seeherman, J., and Liu, Y., “Effects of Extraordinary Snowfall
to provided with a pleasant and peaceful hill travel. The imple- on Traffic Safety,” Accident Analysis and Prevention 81:194-
mentation and production cost are very economical. Further 203, 2015.
compared to other proposed technique in the existing 9. Teke, M., and Duran, F., “The Design and Implementation of
technique the Road Condition Warning System for Drivers,” Measurement
and Control (United Kingdom) 52(7-8):985-994, 2019.

References
1. Kusano, K.D., and Gabler, H.C., “Safety Benefits of Forward
Collision Warning, Brake Assist, and Autonomous Braking

© 2020 SAE International and SAE India. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of SAE International.

Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE International. Responsibility for the content of the work lies
solely with the author(s).

ISSN 0148-7191