Black Box
Activity Focus/ Reason :
Research directed towards new / innovative product development which can be put either to commercial use or for use in the public domain
What is a Black Box for Automobiles?
All of us are aware of the increasing rate of road accidents occurring every day. Major advances in automobile engineering have provided us with good performance vehicles, but they do not provide any information about the circumstances under which an accident occurred. We do have the provision of “Black Box” in airplanes to help us study and know the conditions and circumstances of the airplane before the mishap. But there have been no steps taken towards providing the same in case of road mishaps, where the rate of accidents is higher as compared to accidents in the air. For this reason, C-DAC, Mohali has designed “Black Box” for automobiles. It has facilities like speed detection, alcoholic smell detection, brake oil level detection etc. The system is packed in a small unbreakable, fire-proof box, so that the data remains safe even after the accident. This product provides information about the conditions under which the vehicle was being driven, both from the point of view of driver who was driving the vehicle and the investigating/controlling agency in case of accident. All this study would help us in preventing accidents to a considerable extent. This product is intended to be of immense help to traffic police, transport department & also to automobile manufacturing companies.
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Black Box Versions
Black Box Version-I
Sponsoring agencies: Ministry of Information Technology , New Delhi.
Duration of The Project : Three Years
Start date: April 2004
End date: March 2007
Black Box Version-II
Sponsoring agencies: Core R&D Projects (CDAC, Mohali).
Duration of The Project : Ongoing
Start date: Jan 2010
End date: Continued
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Main Features
- Monitor start and stop time.
- Monitor speed at regular intervals.
- Check breath of driver for presence of alcohol vapors.
- Overload detection (Yet to be added in Version 2)
- Checks the level of brake oil.
- Monitors the engine temperature.
- Provision for detecting steering rod coming off.
- Checks whether the Headlight/ Hazard light is ON/OFF.
- Monitors whether the driver used turning indicators.
- Front camera captures the video information
- Stores above parameters for one week except the video information, which is stored of the last 5 frames.
- All information can be downloaded on a PC.
- Enclosed in a small unbreakable shockproof box, so that it remains safe even after the accident.
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Software Features
- The software has been developed for Windows platform.
- The data from the black box is secure, tamper proof & can be downloaded only by authentic user after providing User ID, Password and Vehicle ID.
- The software will maintain a database to register each vehicle for which data has to be downloaded.
- The users can access old files for analysis and report generation.
- The software application will provide data back-up facility.
- The software application will have a well-documented help system, to provide users full help about the application and its features.
- Data acquisition is from Serial port.
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Technology for Black Box is ready and is available for transfer. Interested parties may send in their expression of interest.
More compact & ergonomic design of Black Box is being developed. Information for same can be sought providing reference as BLACK BOX Version II.
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