Students develop black box for cars

A device paired with an app sends out SOS alerts for police and medical help

The Black Box

(From left) Kevin Pius, Tamal Dey,
Bikram Nath and Dhruv Kumar.

Four students have developed an app to send out alerts in case of road accidents. Called Black Box, it works with a hardware device installed under the seat.

Dhruv Vekariya, Kevin Pius, Tamal Dey and Bikram Nath, all students of MVJ College of Engineering, spent about a year on this project. The app sends out messages to the police control room, ambulance service, and close family members. “One of my uncles met with an accident and his leg got stuck under the dashboard. Because of the long wait for an ambulance, he developed blood clots and was paralysed from the hip down. This is what pushed me to work on the app,” Dhruv told Metrolife.

High-profile cars and aircraft already have black boxes, but they are expensive. The team wanted to develop an affordable version, says Kevin.

How it works

Black Box automatically connects to the Wi-Fi or hotspot as you enter a car. Variations in the accelerometer reading are used to detect a crash and send alerts to numbers listed on the app.