ECE 110/120 Honors Lab Section : BikeAlert

Statement of Purpose

The current system that the university implements for cyclists to find their lost bike is through word of mouth, which can take very long and eventually become futile. BikeAlert aims to make a simpler way for bikers at UIUC to locate their bicycles. Using an interactive map, a user could track their routes using a built-in GPS. In the event that the bike is lost, we plan to use OpenHaystack to integrate with the Apple AirTag system to then locate the bicycle. If the bike is lost in a lot of other bicycles, we plan to use a piezo to create a chime that would allow the user to locate their bike.

Goals:

• Communicate with Raspberry Pi through BLE

• Record GPS positions of a bike trip on Raspberry Pi

• Interface to view map and activate piezo if bike is nearby 

• Integrate OpenHaystack to use Apple’s AirTag system to track

  
  

Background Research

One of our teammates rides a bike to all of his classes. Sometimes, when parking your bike in a long line of other bikes, it can be especially hard to find your bike, especially if it has a generic design. The campus bike program is in place for other people to report if they have seen your bike, but this is not always helpful.

We took inspiration from AirTags which can be used to track any object if lost. AirTags work by sending signals to nearby iPhones which would then allow you to find its location. Our device aims to remove the restriction of owning an Apple device and increase the accessibility of bike recovery. The current solution to this is OpenHaystack which generates a public-private key pair that matches the system that Apple implements and then parses the Bluetooth advertisements that an iPhone would have to decipher.

Block Diagram / Flow Chart

System Overview

The Raspberry Pi Zero W will be used to communicate with the user’s phone and nearby Apple devices. It will also aggregate the data from the GPS module and serve a webpage through a Bluetooth Low Energy service.

The GPS module will allow the user to visualize a map of their bike ride and allow the user to see the general location of their bike if they are in range of the BikeAlert.

The piezo speaker will allow the user to ping their bike, which can be useful if there are many bikes on the bike rack that look similar.

The battery module allows all the other components to be portable and continue running without being connected via USB.

Parts

quantity, model number, purpose, vendor, and price 

Possible Challenges

• The range of Bluetooth can be limited (range extender?)

• Battery usage may be high with constant GPS tracking

• Device can be easily removed if bike is actually stolen

• Piezo speaker is not loud enough

• Hard to secure to bike (could fall off when biking normally)

References

[1]"GitHub - PiSugar/sugar-wifi-conf: A BLE service on raspberry pi for wifi configuration and wireless control. 使用微信小程序随时随地设置树莓派wifi连接，控制树莓派", GitHub, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://github.com/PiSugar/sugar-wifi-conf. [Accessed: 20- Sep- 2021].

[2]"GitHub - seemoo-lab/openhaystack: Build your own 'AirTags' 🏷 today! Framework for tracking personal Bluetooth devices via Apple's massive Find My network.", GitHub, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack. [Accessed: 20- Sep- 2021].

[3]F. Beaufort, "Communicating with Bluetooth devices over JavaScript", web.dev, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://web.dev/bluetooth/. [Accessed: 20- Sep- 2021].