InfraRed System: Smart Solution to Curb Noise Pollution in Traffic

Noise is frequently described as 'unwanted sound', and, is generally present in some form in all areas of human activity. The effect in humans of exposure to environmental noise may vary from emotional to physiological and psychological. Despite awareness campaigns and health warnings issued by doctors, deafening traffic continues to shatter peace of our lives.

Though having knowledge of vehicle standing in front of the front vehicle we keep honking repeatedly, without understanding the harms it may cause to the people who are prone to very high levels of sounds. We present here a cost-effective method of curbing noise pollution using an array of (infrared) IR transmitter and IR receiver. A prototype was tested within the same environment and shown to significantly reduce or eliminate the noise effects resulting in significantly increased control over noise pollution in traffic. This model also allows driver to sense the type of the vehicle behind him (two wheeler, LMV, HMV etc.) based on color distinguishing & symbols and also if any vehicle is overtaking from left or right. This is an added advantage to enhance road safety and avoid accidents.

Software :- Arduino

Hardware :-

1. Microcontroller (here Basic Arduino Board ) x2 (one for transmitter, one for receiver)

2. IR Transmitter ( IR333C ) x5

3. IR Sensor/receiver ( TSMP58138 ) x4

4. Switch in steering ( push switch ) x 1

5. LED’s (334-15/T1C1-4WYA ) x 5

6. Buzzer (SD1209T3-A1 ) x1

7. Connecting wires (as required)

8. 220 ohms Resister x 7

Transmitting part

Connect all the IR transmitters in parallel by soldering on a PCB and paste it in front bumper of a toy vehicle (in case of real vehicle, they need to be placed apart from each other, and hence the quantity of IR transmitters required will be more).

Take the two terminal wires viz. +ve & -ve and connect to the Arduino Board via switch as shown in later part (Transmitter part circuit).

Program the arduino board using USB cable.

Receiver part

Connect all the IR receivers in parallel by soldering on a PCB and paste it in rear bumper of another toy vehicle (in case of real vehicle, they need to be placed apart from each other, and hence the quantity of IR transmitters required will be more).

Take the 3 terminal wires viz. Vcc, Ground, Signal and connect to the other Arduino Board as shown in later part (Receiver part circuit).

Program the arduino board using USB cable.

Buzzer may or may not be connected.

Vehicle Type Display Panel

Take 5 different color LEDs and solder them on a PCB, with all -ve terminal as common, and +ve terminals individually with wires via 220 ohms resister.

After soldering you will have 6 wires** (5 for different LED's and 1 as common -ve), connect them to Arduino Board* as shown in later part (Receiver part circuit).

*note this Arduino board one used in receiver part is same.

**If buzzer is added, you will have 7 wires (5 for different LED's, 1 for buzzer and 1 as common -ve)

In this project efforts have been made to understand that replacing vehicles pressure horns by Infra Red transmitter-receiver pair system that will glow light in front vehicles dashboard that will alert the driver of presence of vehicle behind, hence no use of sound horns automatically reducing the noise pollution.

An array of IR transmitter (IR333C) will be fitted in front bumper of a vehicle (as shown in picture) and switch connection will be connected in place of horn in steering. An array of IR receiver (TSMP58138) will be fitted in rear bumper of another vehicle (as shown in picture) whose series connection will be given to a glowing LED placed in the dashboard of the vehicle. Whenever the driver presses horn switch, IR rays will be emitted and detected by front vehicles IR sensors which will complete the circuit and make the LED glow alerting the driver of vehicle behind.

The transmitter and receiver pair system will work upon binary coding and decoding of infrared signals (same as TV and remote system), and will operate on a particular frequency (here 38 KHz) based on NEC (Nippon Electric Company) (used here) protocols. The transmitter and receiver will be emitting and sensing signals respectively with the help of microcontroller (here Arduino).

The tested range (distance between 2 consecutive vehicles) worked upon in this project was 5m. This range can also be increased further.

The microcontroller here generates the required unique code, and whenever a driver presses the horn the circuit gets completed (as shown in picture) and the unique code is transmitted via IR LED.
The unique code is special pattern of binary numbers i.e. 0’s and 1’s. 1 means high (i.e. LED is ON) 0 means low (i.e. LED is OFF). The unique code depends on number of time a LED is made to ON and OFF in a particular cycle. This code can be of 8 bit or 16 bit or 32 bit.

**code can be found below. Copy, Paste and play.

Here the microcontroller is programmed in such a way to detect with the help of IR sensor only certain type of unique codes(patterns of 0’s and 1’s) generated at a frequency of 38Khz and do the task of glowing different color LED’s associated with particular unique code.
The IR sensor sense all the IR signals focused on its surface but responds only to the one for which the microcontroller is programmed for. Hence letting the LED’s of different color to glow (as shown in picture). The buzzer (SD1209T3-A1) (as of now) is programmed to blow only for emergency vehicles and not for any other type of vehicle.

**code can be found below.Copy, Paste and play.

Different colors of LED’s (334-15/T1C1-4WYA) have been placed in the VTDP (vehicle type display panel) (as shown in picture) that is placed
in the dashboard. Whenever a particular type of vehicle presses horn, then IR signals will be emitted only in associated unique coding given to the vehicle hence glowing that particular type of color LED hence letting driver know also the type of vehicle. The overtaking light is synced with the indicator, whenever a vehicle behind gives indicator (for instance) for overtaking, a yellow/green LED in the front vehicle will show from which direction the behind vehicle is overtaking, hence letting the driver giving way.

• wavelength 0.7 µm to 1mm or freq 430THz to 300 GHz, outside visible region.

• reduce noise pollution by 95-99% (approx.)

• emergency vehicles can be heard properly and given way in appropriate time.

• Will work very efficiently for, who are deaf or hearing challenged and riding a vehicle

• very cheap and simple to implement

• can be implemented on a large scale in very short period of time.

• no much and frequent maintenance required.

• easily replaceable with new unit if malfunction.

• Estimated range of project 5m, which can be increased up to 15m.

Only the idea of implementing the solution of curbing noise pollution using infra-red rays and microcontroller is owned by the authors. Neither of the authors nor any person mentioned here owns any right over any of the components & technology used in making the solutions a success. Especially regarding the microcontroller, any microcontroller may be used instead of the one mentioned here. Also codes of microcontroller are open sourced and may be used and manipulated by anyone.

You can find the Arduino Codes here. just copy, paste in Arduino IDE & play.

**to know about how to write the codes in Arduino board, you may refer to Getting started with Arduino