Design and Implementation of Pollution Control
Embedded System for Vehicles
Sayed Nayab Basha
Akula Mallaiah
M. Tech, Embedded Systems
Gudlavalleru Engineering College
Gudlavalleru - 521356
Electronics and Communication Department
Gudlavalleru Engineering College
Gudlavalleru - 521356
nayabbashasyed@gmail.com
malli797@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The emphasis of this paper is to introduce an embedded
system which controls pollutants emitted by degraded
vehicles. With the gradual use of the vehicle, its engine
degrades, causes emission of pollutants like CO, NO x and
others. In every country, there is limit to emission of
pollutants set by respective authorities. When discharging of
pollutants is beyond emission standards, our system detects
such type of pollutants, warns respective vehicle user. At the
same time it shows nearest service center location through
GPS device to get his vehicle engine serviced. The controller
limits the number that the user can use his vehicle. Upon
reaching the limit, the controller stops the engine leaving the
message containing vehicle details to the respective transport
authority. If some how he manages to run his vehicle, the
authority members may check and seize the vehicle
on it or may use parts of ECU. Semi conductor gas sensor [2] is
placed at fuel exhaust of the vehicle.
As the regulation of air quality is analyzed in paper [3], our
proposed system regulates such type of pollutants emitting
from the vehicles. This way within years we may have
pollution free environment.
2.
ARCHITECTURE OF PROPOSED
SYSTEM
Keywords
Micro controller, GPS, GSM, Sensor, Air Pollution,
Embedded System, LCD Monitoring.
1.
INTRODUCTION
With the drastic change in technology, day by day vehicles
with new features are out in market. Whether there is a need or
not, people buy different types of vehicles. More the vehicles
running, more the pollutants are emitting. Because of the
improper maintenance of those vehicles, the engines get
degraded. Degraded engine causes incomplete combustion of
fuel which emits hazardous gases.
Figure 1. Overall Block Diagram
In every country the government institutes emission standards
to prevent air pollution. There won’t be any problem if the
emission level is within the limit. But, when beyond emission
standards, vehicles emit hazardous gases like CO, NO x and
CO2 etc. These gases are harmful to the environment in every
aspect.
This paper presents a unique way to control the release of
pollutants emitted by vehicles. Every vehicle consists of an
engine control unit. Electronic solenoid valve for fuel injection
[1] and on-board electronic circuit unit (ECU) are parts of it.
This ECU controls functions like navigation system, lighting
system, temperature etc. We may place our main control unit
This proposed system (see Figure 1) uses NXP LPC2148
microcontroller as central processing unit. 16X2 alpha numeric
LCD, JHD162A is used for monitoring purpose. The smoke
sensor MQ7 is interfaced through ADC to the CPU. SIM900
GSM module is used to communicate with database server
maintained by road transport authority. GPS S1315RL device
is used to locate the nearest service center locations to get
vehicle engine serviced at one of them. Upon receiving the
electronic signal from controller, DC motor is stopped or
electronic valve stops fuel which resemblance engine stopping.
3.
SYSTEM DESIGN
KEIL software µvision4 IDE is used to write program in C
language for LPC2148 controller. This IDE includes editor for
entering text, compiler and debugger etc. A hex file is
generated after compiling required program successfully. Flash
Magic software is used for ‘In-System Programming’. The
flow chart (see Figure 2) explains how this system works. The
same flow chart is applicable for programming too. Various
modules included as follows.
3.2
GPS Receiver Module
Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver module works on
the principle of triangulation [4], which uses satellites in space
as reference points to find the current location. Figure 3 shows
that the GPS receiver module is interfaced to microcontroller
through MAX232 level shifter using UART0 serial
communication port. Data receives from the satellite is
expressed in the following format from which we extract
longitude and latitude of current positions.
$GPRMC,[TIME],A/V,[LATITUDE],N,[LONGITUDE]
,E, XXXX.
Figure 3. GPS Receiver Interfacing with Controller
Figure 2. Flow Chart of the Embedded System
3.1
Controller
LPC2148 microcontroller is manufactured by NXP
semiconductors, founded by Philips. It is based on
ARM7TDMI-S core technology which satisfies all the
requirements of this system. The various aspects of LPC2148
used for this project are as follows.
LPC2148 is a 32 bit microcontroller and it can process
maximum of 32 bit data. Flash memory of 512KB and on-chip
static RAM of 32KB makes it ideal for this project. Three stage
pipelining makes the instructions execute faster. It supports
USB 2.0, I2C, SSP, SPI and UART serial communications. In
our project UART0 and UART1 ports are used in
communication with GPS receiver module and GSM module
respectively.
Controller is used mainly for comparing and triggering. It has
got two analog to digital converters (ADCs) to convert analog
output from MQ7 sensor to equivalent digital value. The digital
value will be compared with reference value, if exceeds
controller triggers respective circuit.
3.3
GSM Module
SIM900 is a quad band GSM machine that works at frequency
of 850MHz having 68 pin SMT pad. Sim900 is designed with
power saving technique as low as 1.5mA in sleep mode. It is
integrated with TCP/IP protocol and can be controlled with AT
commands[5]. Data or AT commands are sent and information
from GSM module is received through DB9 serial port as
shown in Figure 4. An evaluation board (EVB) is attached to
SIM900 mainly for interfacing purposes consisting of rs232
serial port, sim card holder, gpio and antenna. Internally the
module is managed by ARM926ej-s processor[6].
3.4
MQ7 Sensor and ADC
At load resistance RL=10k, smoke sensor MQ7 detects Carbon
Monoxide (CO) gas. Figure 5 shows the sensor operation and
Table 1 shows the CO sensor specifications. MQ7 has the
capability to detect CO gas from 10ppm to 10000ppm. When
sensor detects pollutants beyond standard values [7], the analog
output is produced by the CO sensor, which is directly
proportional to the concentration of gas detected. As the CPU
accepts digital input only, the analog values must be converted
to digital using either of two 10 bit successive approximation
ADCs available in microcontroller. The range would be 01023.
Figure 6. LCD Interfacing Module
Figure 4. GSM Module Interfacing
3.6
Electronic Valve/DC Motor and
Buzzer
When the pollutants are detected beyond standard values,
buzzer receives a signal from controller and gives an alarm[8]
to indicate a warning to the user. The interfacing is shown in
Figure 7. From here onwards every time the user uses vehicle
without getting his vehicle serviced, the buzzer gives a
warning. Upon reaching the limit of number of uses, the
controller stops fuel injection [9] by shutting the electronic
valve.
Figure 5. MQ7 Sensor Circuit
Table 1. CO Sensor Specifications
Figure 7. Motor and Buzzer Interfacing with Controller
4.
3.5
LCD Display
JHD162A 16x2 alpha numeric LCD display, which operates on
+5v is used for monitoring purpose as shown in Figure 6. It
indicates whether the hardware is ready, to show pollutant
levels at in normal state and in engine degraded state, to
display warning message to vehicle user and finally to display
nearest service location and distance from current position. The
data is gathered from various modules through microcontroller
to LCD in 4 bit mode to save controller pins for any future
applications.
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
This pollution control embedded system for vehicles is
developed and tested on old vehicle engines successfully. The
smoke sensor MQ7 is small enough to configure at vehicle
exhaust. The main board can be configured in ECU [10]. Fig
shows assembling components of sensor MQ7, GPS and GSM
modules, buzzer and LCD display. MQ7 detected pollutants
beyond standard values from the old degraded engine and sent
this data to controller every time the vehicle is used. First,
controller gave a warning to the user by buzzing and then
stopped the engine when the limit of uses is reached. The
coordinates of nearest service center location is shown on LCD
in Figure 8.
[2]
George F. Fine, Leon M. Cavanagh, Ayo Afonja and
Russell Binions " Metal Oxide Semi-Conductor Gas Sensors in
Environmental Monitoring", Sensors 2010, 10, 5469-5502;
doi:10.3390/s100605469
[3]
K. Galatsis, W. Wlodarsla, K. Kalantar-Zadeh and A.
Trinchi, "Investigation of gas sensors for vehicle cabin air
qualitymonitoring,” vol. 42, pp. 167-175, 2002.
[4]
http://www.trimble.com/gps_tutorial/howgpstriangulating.aspx
Figure 8. Main Circuit Board and CO Monitoring
Equipment
5.
CONCLUSION
Based on functionalities of CO sensor, ADC, GPS receiver and
GSM modules, which are compatible for portable monitoring
and controlling of pollutants, an embedded system was
developed to regulate emission of pollutants. Apart from
simple structure, this system can be easily adopted to any ECU
of a vehicle. Not only can we use this system for vehicles but
also for industries to regulate emission of pollutants from
industrial processes.
REFERENCES
[1]
Siva
Shankar
Chandrasekaran,
Sudharshan
Muthukumar and Sabeshkumar Rajendran, “Automatic Control
System for Air Pollution Detection in Vehicles”, 2013, 4th
International Conference on Intelligent Systems, Modelling
and Simulation.
[5]
http://www.simcom.ee/documents/gsmgprs/sim900/SIM900_AT%20Command%20Manual_V1.09.pd
f
[6]
http://wm.sim.com/articleen.aspx?id=1215
[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_standard
[8]
LIU Zhen-ya, WANG Zhen-dong, CHEN Rong,
“Intelligent Residential Security Alarm and Remote Control
System Based On Single Chip Computer,” vol. 42, pp. 143166, 2008
[9]
“Trade of Motor Mechanic”; Module 5; Unit 2
Electronic Fuel injection; Phase 2 by FÁS Learning Innovation
Unit with Martin McMahon & CDX Global; Curriculum
Revision 2.2 16-01-07
[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_control_unit.