Vehicle Tracking Systems: Integrating GPS, Microcontrollers, and GSM.

Ramani et al. (2015) described vehicle tracking systems as technologies that help vehicle owners and third parties to track the location of their vehicles. These technologies help to address the security of vehicles and owners by providing detailed information on the location of the vehicle at any given time. The majority of vehicle tracking systems integrate GPS receivers, microcontrollers, and GSM modules. This integration allows for the simultaneous transmission and reception of data. Vehicle tracking systems have two aspects; hardware and software. The two must be executed synergistically to ensure that there is reliable communication between the vehicle and a central monitoring location. The hardware aspect is characterized by the microcontroller electrical wiring and the GSM module integration. On its part, the software aspect constitutes the GSM message command, the source code, and other protocol commands.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Vehicle tracking systems are designed to curb vehicle theft and location change monitoring. The resulting information helps vehicle owners, particularly fleet managers to monitor their transport and logistics businesses with ease. Small electronic elements are hidden somewhere in the vehicle, and upon installation, it is initiated to relay communication to a centrally managed web application. Changes in vehicle location can also be transmitted to the vehicle owner via their mobile devices. Besides the location of the vehicle, it is also programmed to provide the distance from the owner to the location of the vehicle. The design of the system should ensure that efficiency and security are guaranteed.

Each time a vehicle is parked, it is fixed at a tracking security state. When vehicle theft occurs, the location of the vehicle is altered. At this point, the vehicle owner sends an SMS to the tracking system fixed on the car to determine its position or location. The prompt that is initiated passes through a GSM service provider before it is routed to the vehicle tracking system. The vehicle will be traveling at this point together with the GSM device, which has a SIM card (Ramani et al., 2015). The GSM modem then receives the SMS and communicates with the microcontroller, which is also fixed on the vehicle.

Upon receipt of this SMS, the microcontroller compares its password and command with what is already programmed. In the event that there is a match, with what is preprogrammed, then the system performs the request and executes the directive from the owner. It then relays information about the location; latitude, longitude and time associated with the vehicle at the time results are then be displayed on the screen of the owner's mobile device. Once a full loop of the communication is realized, the owner can choose to disable the vehicle engine and have it grounded in one location where it can then be retrieved.

Fig. 1: Microcontroller wiring system

GSM is a cellular network. This implies that a mobile phone is required to link it through a network search. Such communication is only possible with nodes in the immediate vicinity. GSM networks work within one of four different frequency ranges. The majority of GSM networks operate within the 900 MHz to 1800 MHz frequency bands. GSM employs multiple voice codecs to constrict find room for a 3.1 kHz audio between5.6 and 13 kbit/s bandwidth. Formerly, two codecs were enough, the Half Rate (5.6 kbit/s) and Full Rate (13 kbit/s). Each applied a structure constructed over linear predictive coding (LPC) (Ramani et al., 2015).

Besides the efficiency derived from the bitrates, the two codecs also eased the identification of more critical aspects of the audio. This approach allowed the prioritization of the air interface layer and enhancement and protection of the key signal components. Further improvement to the GSM led to the establishment of the Enhanced Full Rate (EFR) codec. The EFR codec is 12.2 kbit/s and employs a full rate channel (Ramani et al., 2015). Lastly, with the establishment of UMTS, there was the refactoring of the EFR into AMR-Narrowband, a variable-rate codec with high-quality performance and strength to repulse interference when employed within full-rate channels. They were also the less vigorous yet still reasonably high quality when employed within proper half-rate radio-conditions.

References

Ramani, R., Valarmathy, S., SuthanthiraVanitha, N., Selvaraju, S., Thiruppathi, M., & Thangam, R. (2013). Vehicle tracking and locking system based on GSM and GPS. IJ Intelligent systems and Applications, 9, 86-93.