Interactive Emergency System for Low Income Settlements

ARCH 879/ECE 893 - Architectural Robotics
Henrique Houayek
Krishna Teja

Interactive Emergency System for Low Income Settlements



Problem Statement

A recent Federal Census (IPP 2009) has estimated that today there are more than a thousand slums in Rio de Janeiro. These have spread rapidly in the past forty years and are now a constant part of this Brazilian city landscape. Despite their number they remain a marginalized part of the city with lack of important infrastructure and susceptible to emergency situations.




Design Proposition

To help improve the infrastructure of these spaces this group proposes the creation of a mobile interactive robot that could float around the slum in a cable, sensing diverse situations and reacting and communicating the population.
Emergency Situations would be communicated via color signals, these could be:

• At night: sense movement of the inhabitants, turn a light on and follow that specific person all the way to their house.

• Signal population if there is any police and criminal conflict.

• Possible fire

• Earth Slides/ Heavy Rain

• Health issues




Possible emergency situations







Robot would walk over cables suspended by poles in the area










(A) Yellow: Light to illuminate streets and pedestrians
(B) Green: Fire
(C) Blue: Conflict between police and criminal conflict
(D) Red: Heavy rain, Possible earth slides


Scenario


(A) It’s night in the neighborhood, Manuela needs to leave home to buy some medications in the pharmacy.

(B) While Manuela walks, the sensors embedded in the street sense her presence. This actuates the light and moves the robot in the direction of her movement.

(C) Every time Manuela walks, different sensors in the street sense and move the light according to her trajectory.

Diagram of parts



1- Sensor: transmitter/receiver
2- RC Servo motor connected to pulley
3- Suspended robot over two poles embedded with multiple lights

Possible scenario




Danger situation in the area, sensors embedded around the area would tell the robot that this could be a possible earth slide. Robot senses the movement of people and sends a light signal: The space is dangerous to walk or the structure of the wood bridge can be damage.


Hardware used:

Arduino Board RC-servos
(2) IR Led’s
(3) IR Receivers
(3) Resistors (3-10k ohms, 3-100 ohms)
(2) Pulleys

Script

int servoPin1 = 9; int servoPin2 = 10; int Action1 = 2; // Action sensors (Digital Inputs 2-4) int Action2 = 3; int Action3 = 4; int Yellow = 12; int Action = 0; int A1 = 0; int A2 = 0; int A3 = 0; void setup() { pinMode(servoPin1,OUTPUT); pinMode(servoPin2,OUTPUT); pinMode(Yellow,OUTPUT); pinMode(Action1,INPUT); pinMode(Action2,INPUT); pinMode(Action3,INPUT); } void loop() { digitalWrite(Yellow,LOW); while (Action == 0) { A1 = digitalRead(Action1); //when motion is detected if (A1==HIGH) { Action = 1; } else { Action = 0; } } digitalWrite(Yellow,HIGH); //led turns on int temp; for (temp = 0; temp <=250; temp++) { digitalWrite(servoPin1,HIGH); delayMicroseconds(1600); digitalWrite(servoPin1,LOW); delayMicroseconds(20); digitalWrite(servoPin2,HIGH); delayMicroseconds(1600); digitalWrite(servoPin2,LOW); delayMicroseconds(20); } A2 = digitalRead(Action2); //when motion is detected if (A2==HIGH) { Action = 1; } else { Action = 0; } while (Action == 0) { A2 = digitalRead(Action2); if (A2==HIGH) { Action = 1; } else { Action = 0; } } for (temp = 0; temp <=250; temp++) { digitalWrite(servoPin1,HIGH); delayMicroseconds(1600); digitalWrite(servoPin1,LOW); delayMicroseconds(20); digitalWrite(servoPin2,HIGH); delayMicroseconds(1600); digitalWrite(servoPin2,LOW); delayMicroseconds(20); } A3 = digitalRead(Action3); if (A3==HIGH) { Action = 1; } else { Action = 0; } }

Problems encountered:

1) The number of sensors used was not enough to capture real time movement of pedestrians. 2) The cable used to support the movement of the robot was not rigid; better motion would been obtained by using different material for the string. 3) One Arduino board can only handle a limited number of inputs and outputs it was difficult to use more than 2 RC-servos which would have given a better directional control.