MUET Shuttle Tracking System using Fusion of MUET smart WIFI network and LoRa Architecture

At the start of the day, we start with the transportation system provided by the university to reach the university. Transportation system job is to receive the students or faculty members from the respective area and drop them to their respective department, and at the end pick them from their depa

Project Title

MUET Shuttle Tracking System using Fusion of MUET smart WIFI network and LoRa Architecture

Project Area of Specialization

Information & Communication Technology

Project Summary

At the start of the day, we start with the transportation system provided by the university to reach the university. Transportation system job is to receive the students or faculty members from the respective area and drop them to their respective department, and at the end pick them from their department and in between commute them to different departments for their classes at different department. It is an observation that daily operation of shuttle transportation system is affected by the number of vehicles, number of students and number of stops per journey. The movement of vehicles is affected by different uncertain conditions as the day progresses, such as:

1. Unexpected delays due to students hop-over time
2. Irregular Vehicle-dispatching time from main transportation system
3. Other Accidents or wreckage

Primarily the reason of late is Location of the bus is not known, users need to estimate or ask the bus information from the driver himself or wait until designated bus arrive after unknown delay. It is required by the time  that the students have multiple classes to attend or the faculty has to reach designated department in time so, therefore we propose an idea that the student or faculty member can use to in order to reach their destination. The main problem is that student or teacher has to reach the destination in time because the performance is analyzed based on arrival and start of classes, this project addresses this problem and provides a solution that user can use a mobile app in order to track ongoing traffic of the shuttle and can provide estimated arrival time (ETA) for the given route or given bus in the university only. It makes transport much convenient for users who commute daily using bus transport of university, for effective time management and making it hassle free. This project will work as a device will be attached to the transport system and that device will be connected the centralized system of MUET using a wireless architecture, this centralized device will then be connected to internet which will be updating a server. The server will be sending the information to the user’s hand devices and then user will be provided with information regarding to the movement of traffic. To interconnect the server and the bus we will be using a wireless medium considered as LoRa and we will also be looking for different wireless mediums available, the data to the LoRa will be feed from onboard GPS system which will then be send to receiver node or gateway node. This gateway node will then update the data to database server which will be later recovered by mobile app with integration of google map so that user can see the real time movement of the bus on google map.

The system block diagram is proposed in figure 1:

Figure: 1 

Project Objectives

The aim of this project is to provide the location of the bus and let the user update current position using fusion of WI-FI network and LoRa architecture, to make this more manageable and time efficient for students and faculty  without paying any extra services or waiting for unusual time

The key project objectives are stated here:

1. To analyze different methods to track the bus using different location systems.
2. Propose alternative method to upload the tracking data without use of WIFI or GSM technology (Bluetooth, ZigBee, LoRa etc.)
3. To display the location of bus on a website or app with a certain value added services.

Project Implementation Method

This project is based on two sections transmitter and receiver, and an app development. The main component used in our project is LoRa device which is used to send data from transmitter to receiver. On transmitter side GPS will begin and would search for the nearest value of the bus, after finding the GPS data it would search for the bus ID and then LoRa packet would transmit the data. At the receiver side the packet will be updated to the server based on the bus ID and the GPS data provided into the packet. After the data is uploaded on the server, it can be seen on website from where the data will be fetch from the server and update using google API.

A flow chart for transmitter is shown in below figure 2:

Figure: 2

A flow chart for receiver is shown in below figure 3:

Figure: 3

A flow chart for app is shown in below figure 4:

Figure:4

Benefits of the Project

The benefits of the project are stated below:

• Use of existing infrastructure.
• Management can observe bus timings and can monitor driver position.
• End users can manage their time more effectively and precisely.
• Total cost of data transmission is zero.
• With minimal extra costs and will be marketable.
• It can be used to any tracking logistics or moving assets.
• It can be also used on a large scale as there are businesses those run only for university/school bus transportation.
• It can lead to smart cities.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Final deliverable will be:

1. A module for the bus to be tracked off.
2. A gateway for the integration of receiving the data and sending it to the server.
3. A mobile app which can show moving asset.

The module for the bus uses an Arduino Uno, neo6m v2 U blox GPS module and a LoRa module SX1278. The NEO-6 module features high performance u-blox 6 positioning engine. It’s flexible and cost effective receiver offer numerous connectivity options in a miniature package. It’s compact architecture and power and memory options make NEO-6 module ideal for battery operated mobile devices with very strict cost and space constraints. The SX1278 is low power, long range transceiver that provides ultra-long range spread spectrum communication and high interference immunity whilst minimizing current consumption. The gateway is composed of ESP8266 CH340 G NodeMCU and LoRa module SX1278. The NodeMcu is an open-source firmware and development kit that helps to prototype the product. Mobile app is developed with google map integration.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Telecommunication

Other Industries

IT , Transportation

Core Technology

Internet of Things (IoT)

Other Technologies

Wearables and Implantables

Sustainable Development Goals

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Sustainable Cities and Communities

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com