Air Guard: An IoT-Based Safety and Emergency Response Helmet

Abstract

 The urban riders of the two-wheeled vehicles bear a two-fold burden of exposing themselves to the high risks of road accidents as well as gradual destruction of the health by the air toxicity, and the conventional helmets can only offer passive protection to the head but not to monitor the condition of health and surroundings. This limit reduces the possibilities of timely response in case of some critical events and in cases of the prolonged exposure to unhealthy air quality. The goal of the suggested study is to create and pilot Air Guard, a smart helmet with integrated IoT functions, that combines certifiable impact protection, real-time physiological tracking, air-filtration system sensitive to pollution, and automatic connectivity to the Internet, to improve the safety and health of the rider within the densely populated high-pollution urban routes. Lightweight composite shell, which satisfies the BIS/ISI and DOT requirements, will be added to the Air Guard as well as inertial measurement sensor (accelerator, gyroscope), wireless communication module (Wi Fi, GSM, Bluetooth) and companion mobile application. The health subsystem monitors the heart rate, blood oxygenation (SpO2) and optional heart sensors, alcohol content and fatigue in riders by tracking head-movement. PM2.5/PM10 sensor, active multi-layer polypropylene filtration with optional nanofiber and activated carbon layer, UV C- based face mask sanitization, and medical grade silicone face seal are also required to ensure the environmental safety. Sensor data feeds to a cloud-based application that offers support of real-time dashboard displays, crash impacts analysis, automatic SOS notifications with GPS geolocation, air-quality hazards, and integration points of hospital and insurance systems. The effectiveness of the system was tested based on the 50 test riders in 12 weeks on the urban streets of Kanpur, India under varying air quality and traffic density conditions. It was discovered that the integrated architecture had an accuracy of crash detection of 98.7 percent, rated mean emergency alert delivery of 2.3 seconds after impact, continuous SpO2 and heart rate measurement, and PM sensor reliability of 96.5 percent even compared to reference grade air-quality monitors. The luxury modular features, such as head-up display as a visor, removable battery packs, fans, and temperature controls got a good rating among 91 percent of the individuals who ride the bike, particularly on commuting with a range.