INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING STUDIES Volume VII /Issue 4 / OCT 2016

IDENTIFICATION OF POTHOLES AND HUMPS ON ROADS TO AID DRIVERS BY

USING ULTRASONIC SENSOR
CH.PRIYANKA1, K.PRAVEENA 2, DR.B.HARI KRISHNA3, C. ASHOK KUMAR4
1
Ch.priyanka, M.Tech Student, Dept Of Ece, CMR Engineering College, Kandalakoya, Medchal Mandal,
Rangareddy Dist, Telangana, India.
2
Guide Details: K.Praveena, M.Tech, Assistant professor, Dept Of Ece, CMR Engineering College, Kandalakoya,
Medchal Mandal, Rangareddy Dist, Telangana, India.
3
Coordinator Details: Dr. B. Hari Krishna, Ph.D., Professor, Dept Of Ece, CMR Engineering College, Kandalakoya,
Medchal Mandal, Rangareddy Dist, Telangana, India.
4
HOD Details: C. Ashok kumar, Ph.D., Professor, Dept Of Ece, CMR Engineering College, Kandalakoya, Medchal
Mandal, Rangareddy Dist, Telangana, India.

Abstract: One of the major problems in developing I. INTRODUCTION

countries is maintenance of roads. Well maintained
roads contribute a major portion to the countrys
economy. Identification of pavement distress such as
potholes and humps not only helps drivers to avoid
accidents or vehicle damages, but also helps
authorities to maintain roads. This paper discusses
previous pothole detection methods that have been
developed and proposes a cost-effective solution to
identify the potholes and humps on roads and provide
timely alerts to drivers to avoid accidents or vehicle
damages. Ultrasonic sensors are used to identify the
potholes and humps and also to measure their depth
and height, respectively. The proposed system
captures the geographical location coordinates of the
potholes and humps using a global positioning
system receiver. The sensed-data includes pothole
depth, height of hump, and geographic location,
which is stored in the database (cloud). This serves as
a valuable source of information to the government
authorities and vehicle drivers. An android
application is used to alert drivers so that
precautionary measures can be taken to evade
accidents. Alerts are given in the form of flash
messages with an audio beep.
Keywords: GPS, GSM, Ultrasonic sensor.
Over the last two decades, there has been a
tremendous increase in the vehicle population. This
proliferation of vehicles has led to problems such as
traffic congestion and increase in the number of road
accidents. Pathetic condition of roads is a boosting
factor for traffic congestion and accidents.
Researchers are working in the area of traffic
congestion control [2], an integral part of vehicular
area networks, which is the need of the hour today.
Roads in India normally have speed breakers so that
the vehicles speed can be controlled to avoid
accidents. However, these speed breakers are
unevenly distributed with uneven and unscientific
heights. Potholes, formed due to heavy rains and
movement of heavy vehicles, also become a major
reason for traumatic accidents and loss of human
lives. According to the survey report Road
Accidents in India, 2011, by the ministry of road
transport and highways, a total of 1,42,485 people
had lost their lives due to fatal road accidents. Of
these, nearly 1.5 per cent or nearly 2,200 fatalities
were due to poor condition of roads. To address the
above mentioned problems, a cost effective solution
is needed that collects the information about the
severity of potholes and humps and also helps drivers

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to drive safely. With the proposed system an attempt Ultrasonic sensor:

has been made to endorse drivers to ward off the
accidents caused due to potholes and raised humps. The sensor is primarily intended to be used in
security systems for detection of moving objects, but
II. HARDWARE SYSTEM can be effectively involved in intelligent childrens
toys, automatic door opening devices, and sports
Power
Supply training and contact-less-speed measurement
LCD equipment. Infrared sensors are characterized by high
Ultrasonic
Sensor
GSM sensitivity, low cost and are widely used. But, these
BUZZER sensors can generate false alarm signals if heating
Micro systems are active or temperature change speed
Driver
Circuit
Controller 2-Axis exceeds some threshold level. Moreover, infrared
GPS Robot
Driver
Circuit sensors appreciably lose sensitivity if small insects
penetrate the sensor lens. Ultrasound motion
Fig 1: Block diagram detection sensors are characterized by small power
consumption, suitable cost and high sensitivity. That
III. METHODOLOGY
it why this kind of sensor is commonly used in home,
Micro controller: This section forms the control unit office and car security systems. Existing ultrasound
of the whole project. This section basically consists sensors consist of multiple passive and active
of a Microcontroller with its associated circuitry like components and are relatively complicated for
Crystal with capacitors, Reset circuitry, Pull up production and testing. Sensors often times require a
resistors (if needed) and so on. The Microcontroller laborious tuning process.
forms the heart of the project because it controls the
devices being interfaced and communicates with the
devices according to the program being written.
ARM7TDMI: ARM is the abbreviation of Advanced
RISC Machines, it is the name of a class of
processors, and is the name of a kind technology too.
The RISC instruction set, and related decode
Fig 2: Ultrasonic sensor
mechanism are much simpler than those of Complex
GSM:
Instruction Set Computer (CISC) designs.
Liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat panel display, Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is
electronic visual display that uses the light a set of ETSI standards specifying the infrastructure
modulation properties of liquid crystals. Liquid for a digital cellular service.
crystals do not emit light directly. LCDs are available
to display arbitrary images or fixed images which can The network is structured into a number of discrete
be displayed or hidden, such as preset words, digits, sections:
and 7-segment displays as in a digital clock.

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Base Station Subsystem the base stations
and their controllers explained
Network and Switching Subsystem the
part of the network most similar to a fixed
network, sometimes just called the "core
network"
GPRS Core Network the optional part
which allows packet-based Internet
connections
Operations support system (OSS) network
maintenance
SM was intended to be a secure wireless system. It
has considered the user authentication using a pre-
shared key and challenge-response, and over-the-air
encryption. However, GSM is vulnerable to different
class of attacks, each of them aiming a different part
of the network.
Fig 3: GSM Module
GPS:
Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is
changing the way we work and play. You can use
GPS technology when you are driving, flying, fishing,
sailing, hiking, running, biking, working,
exploring. With a GPS receiver, you have an amazing
amount of information at your fingertips. Here are just
a few examples of how you can use GPS technology.
GPS technology requires the following three
segments.
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Space segment.
Control segment.
User segment
Space Segment
At least 24 GPS satellites orbit the earth
twice a day in a specific pattern. They travel at
approximately 7,000 miles per hour about 12,000
miles above the earths surface. These satellites are
spaced so that a GPS receiver anywhere in the world
can receive signals from at least four of them.
Control Segment
The control segment is responsible for constantly
monitoring satellite health, signal integrity, and orbital
configuration from the ground control segment
includes the following sections: Master control
station, Monitor stations, and Ground antennas.
User Segment
The GPS user segment consists of your GPS
receiver. Your receiver collects and processes signals
from the GPS satellites that are in view and then uses
that information to determine and display your
location, speed, time, and so forth. Your GPS receiver
does not transmit any information back to the
satellites.
The following points provide a summary of the
technology at work:
The control segment constantly monitors the
or GPS constellation and uploads information
to satellites to provide maximum user
accuracy
Your GPS receiver collects information from
the GPS satellites that are in view.
Your GPS receiver accounts for errors. For
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more information, refer to the Sources of
Errors.
Your GPS receiver determines your current
location, velocity, and time.
Your GPS receiver can calculate other
information, such as bearing, track, trip
distance, and distance to destination, sunrise
and sunset time so forth.
Your GPS receiver displays the applicable
information on the screen.
Fig 4: GPS Working
Buzzer:
A buzzer or beeper is a signaling device, usually
electronic, typically used in automobiles, household
appliances such as a microwave ovens, & game
shows. The word "buzzer" comes from the rasping
noise that buzzers made when they were
electromechanical devices, operated from stepped-
down AC line voltage at 50 or 60 cycles. Other
sounds commonly used to indicate that a button has
been pressed are a ring or a beep.
The "Piezoelectric sound components" introduced
herein operate on an innovative principle utilizing
natural oscillation of piezoelectric ceramics. These
buzzers are offered in lightweight compact sizes from
the smallest diameter of 12mm to large Piezo electric
sounders. Today, piezoelectric sound components are
used in many ways such as home appliances, OA
equipment, audio equipment telephones, etc. And
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they are applied widely, for example, in alarms,
speakers, telephone ringers, receivers, transmitters,
beep sounds, etc.
Fig 5: Types of Buzzers
IV. CONCLUSION
The model proposed in this paper serves 2 important
purposes; automatic detection of potholes and humps
and alerting vehicle drivers to evade potential
accidents. The proposed approach is an economic
solution for detection of dreadful potholes and
uneven humps, as it uses low cost ultrasonic sensors.
The mobile application used in this system is an
additional advantage as it provides timely alerts about
potholes and humps. The solution also works in rainy
season when potholes are filled with muddy water as
alerts are generated using the information stored in
the database. We feel that the solution provided in
this paper can save many lives and ailing patients
who suffer from tragic accidents.
V. REFERENCES
[1] India Transport Sector. [Online]. Available:
http://web. worldbank.org/ WBSITE/EXTERNAL/
COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/EXTSARREGTOP
TRANSPORT/0contentMDK:20703625~menuPK:8
68822~pagePK:34004173~piPK:34003707~theSiteP
K:579598,00.html,accessed Mar. 16, 2015.
[2] R. Sundar, S. Hebbar, and V. Golla,
Implementing intelligent traffic control system for
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congestion control, ambulance clearance, and stolen [10] M. Strutu, G. Stamatescu, and D. Popescu, A
vehicle detection, IEEE Sensors J., vol. 15, no. 2, mobile sensor network based road surface monitoring
pp. 11091113, Feb. 2015. system, in Proc. 17th Int. Conf. Syst. Theory,
[3] I. Moazzam, K. Kamal, S. Mathavan, S. Usman, Control Comput. (ICSTCC), Oct. 2013, pp. 630634.
and M. Rahman, Metrology and visualization of
AUTHORS
potholes using the microsoft Kinect sensor, in Proc.
16th Int. IEEE Conf. Intell. Transp. Syst., Oct. 2013,
Ch. Priyanka,is currently pursuing her
pp. 12841291.
M.Tech in CMR Engineering college. Her
[4] S. S. Rode, S. Vijay, P. Goyal, P. Kulkarni, and
Area of Interest Communications.
K. Arya, Pothole detection and warning system:
Infrastructure support and system design, in Proc.
Int. Conf. Electron. Comput. Technol., Feb. 2009, pp.
286290. K.Praveena has completed her Mtech from
[5] H. Youquan, W. Jian, Q. Hanxing, Z. Wei, and X. GNITS College . she is currently working
as assistant professor in CMR Engineering
Jianfang, A research of pavement potholes detection
college. Her Area Of Interest
based on three-dimensional projection Communications.
transformation, in Proc. 4th Int. Congr. Image
Signal Process. (CISP), Oct. 2011, pp. 18051808.
[6] J. Lin and Y. Liu, Potholes detection based on Dr.B.Hari Krishna was born on feb 7, 1980
SVM in the pavement distress image, in Proc. 9th , India and got B.Tech ECE, from JNTUH in
Int. Symp. Distrib. Comput. Appl. Bus. Eng. Sci., the Year 2002, M.Tech. (Embedded systems)

Aug. 2010, pp. 544547. from SRM University, Chennai in the Year
2005 and Ph.D. from Sathyabama University
[7] F. Orhan and P. E. Eren, Road hazard detection
in the year 2015. He has got 10 Years of
and sharing with multimodal sensor analysis on
Teaching Experience. Presently, he is
smartphones, in Proc. 7th Int. Conf. Next Generat.
working as Professor in Department of
Mobile Apps, Services Technol., Sep. 2013, pp. 56 Electronics and communication engineering
61. in CMR Engineering College Hyderabad. He
[8] A. Mednis, G. Strazdins, R. Zviedris, G. has so far published papers in referred
Kanonirs, and L. Selavo, Real time pothole International Journals and national journals.
detection using Android smartphones with And attended and published papers in

accelerometers, in Proc. Int. Conf. Distrib. Comput. international conferences and national
conferences. His area of interest are fault
Sensor Syst. Workshops, Jun. 2011, pp. 16.
tolerance, Embedded systems, image
[9] Z. Zhang, X. Ai, C. K. Chan, and N. Dahnoun,
processing.(COORDINATOR)
An efficient algorithm for pothole detection using
stereo vision, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Acoust.,
Speech Signal Process., May 2014, pp. 564568.

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Professor C.Ashok Kumar was born on

June 05, 1968. India and got B.Tech ECE,
from Nagarjuna University in the Year 1993,
M.Tech. (Industrial electronics) from KREC
SURATKAL in the Year 1999 and pursuing
Ph.D. from JNTU University, Hyderabad. He
has got 16 Years of Teaching Experience and
4 years in industry. Presently, he is working
as Professor and HOD in Department of
Electronics communication engineering in
CMR Engineering College Hyderabad. His
area of interest are Lower power VLSI,
image processing, Networking, wireless
communication.(HOD)

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