Introduction

Statement of Purpose:

One of the most harmful crimes which has unfortunately become common in recent years is sexual assault/rape. Though it is a rampant crime in third-world countries, it is happening everywhere. Women, more than men, are taken on by force or taken advantage of in vulnerable situations. In some parts of the world, women are not even able to walk to places such as school or work without feeling a sense of danger. While some have handy smartphones to reach for to call for help, many do not. However, even a smartphone does not provide much help when one is caught in an unexpected situation. So, we propose that distributing our women’s/general safety bracelet will be the solution to this problem. This bracelet will be discretely worn and when one perceives danger s/he can quickly send his or her location to emergency contacts to immediately receive help.

Background Research:

In 2012, a study conducted in New Delhi found that 92 per cent of women reported having experienced some form of sexual violence in public spaces in their lifetime, and 88 per cent of women reported having experienced some form of verbal sexual harassment in their lifetime. About 25% of women who participated in a survey in South Africa stated that they had been raped. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, especially in the eastern part of the country, the prevalence of sexual violence is so high that the country has been described as the “Rape Capital of the World”. A woman is raped every ninety minutes in Sri Lanka. Even in Europe and the U.S., rape is a major problem, and every two minutes someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. These are just a few samples of data on the millions of people who are victim to rape.

Design Details

Block Diagram / Flow Chart:

Voice recognition module:

GPS+GSM module:

Button:

System Overview:

The bracelet will consist of an Arduino which will incorporate a microcontroller, voice recognition module, GPS chip, GSM Cellular module, and a button. The voice recognition will allow the user to speak a sequence of code words to activate the emergency response. The cellular module will then take the location from the GPS chip and send it to emergency contacts. The button can be pressed three times to activate the emergency response. A small application will activate the sequence of code words and store the emergency contact information, implementing a method which will send an automatic message.

Parts

Adafruit FONA 808 Shield - Mini Cellular GSM + GPS for Arduino
GSM 2G SIM Card from Ting & Adafruit - Data/Voice/Text USA Only
Tiny breadboard
Adafruit Pro Trinket - 5V 16MHz
FLORA - Wearable electronic platform: Arduino-compatible - v3
Voice Recognition Module - VRbot

Possible Challenges

There may not be phone service in rural areas.
Voice commands need to be random and specific so as not to trigger the emergency contact for false alarms.

References

http://www.final-yearproject.com/2011/09/gsm-gps-based-school-kids-tracking.html#.V-WfWSgrI2w

https://www.adafruit.com

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/9753

http://www.wonderslist.com/10-countries-highest-rape-crime/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo

www.rainn.org

http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures

Journal: October 21, 2016

Currently, we have ordered the Sparkfun voice recognition module and Arduino Uno. Our first objective is to get the module to work along with the small application that we are writing. This application takes user input and delineates the keyword sequence which will trigger the emergency response (for now, this response is just getting an LED to light up). Only when this voice command AND the button input is received will the response be triggered (this is where we will integrate the logic gate requirement for ECE 120).

Journal: October 28, 2016

Our Sparkfun EasyVR Shield 3.0 has arrived, and we have soldered it to the Arduino Uno. We have programmed our Arduino to accept the response "Help" and the emergency signal is triggered. However, the GUI that comes with the EasyVR module is not recognizing the EasyVR shield. We have searched for the solution in every single forum and tried every possible step.

Journal: November 4, 2016

The EasyVR module is still giving us no luck. Because all the online forums are pointing to the fact that this is a faulty equipment, (some people find success with it, but there are so many problems with its compatibility with the Arduino devices and with serial ports. Since it is getting late to order another voice recognition part, we will save that for next semester. We will implement the second input of the emergency trigger using a Piezo vibration sensor. This idea was in our initial brainstorming because if one is unable to press the button, one can shake his or her hand or hit the bracelet against something to create a vibration and send an emergency signal that way.

Journal: November 11, 2016

Today, we redesigned our logic to take the button input OR a vibration input. ANDing them was our initial idea to make sure that an accidental signal was not created, and to ensure that both must be done to trigger the response. However, we have decided that it makes more sense to OR them (with false-alarm precautions to come later) in case one is unable to operate two hands to press the button.

Journal: November 18, 2016

We have now created the output signals to sound an alarm and flash LEDs. The proof-of-concept of our design is now finished. We have two input signals OR'd to produce the emergency response.

Journal: December 2, 2016

Today, we just cleaned up our circuit and worked on our final lab report. Next semester's plan will be to add voice recognition as we originally planned, and to create the actual emergency response using GPS+GSM to send the location to a phone number.

ECE 110/120 Honors Lab Section : Women's/General Safety Bracelet