INVESTIGATION ON CARBON MONOXIDE MONITORING AND ALERT SYSTEM FOR VEHICLES

Abstract

Carbon monoxide (CO) gas is a compound produced by incomplete combustion of various carbon based fuels and substances. The slow accumulation of this poisonous gas can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, vertigo and confusion which are harmful for the passengers safety and environmental protection. This study aims to design an integrated system for a vehicle that can sense and detect the gases such as carbon monoxide (CO). Further, it monitors the content of gases lively and displays their concentration every second. It also provides alarm automatically once the CO content exceeds the normal level in order to operate ventilation system immediately. A text message (SMS) is delivered to the authorized user through GSM in order to activate the power windows automatically to rid the carbon monoxide outside the car cabin. The merits of the designed detection system compared with manual one are its fast response time and accurate detection of any critical or emergency case that treat it automatically.

Existing System

Alcohol detection with car lock

Proposed System

The system consists of three operations which are the input, process, and output. The system uses 9V battery as a power supply. The MQ-5 CO Sensor serves as the input component in which it detects the carbon monoxide gas and passes the output voltage on to the Arduino microcontroller. On the process operation, the Arduino microcontroller unit reads the output voltage from the CO sensor, and with the program code burned, the output voltage is converted into concentration of CO in ppm. The LCD acts as a monitor that will project the concentration of the CO detected and tells if the poisonous gas is in safe condition, warning, or in danger state. The alarm is triggered when the concentration is within the warning range while the power window opens when the concentration is within the danger state. The analogue to digital converter is connected to the Arduino microcontroller to convert the sensors inputs to digital ones and later send them to the Arduino, which they be displayed on the LCD. If critical case is happened, text message is delivered to the authorized user revealing the details of that critical case and notifying the driver. In turns, it will open quarter of the car window to escape the CO gas from the car cabin.

Architecture