Effective model for car monitoring and tracking

Abstract

Car theft is one of the major issues that have been widely discussed all over the world. There are many types of car security systems that have been used to date; however, most of them are expensive and not efficient enough in preventing car theft. Therefore, this study is carried out to overcome the existing problem by proposing an effective car monitoring and tracking model. The proposed model is integrated with monitoring and tracking system using mobility, multimedia, and database facilities. The use of camera and multimedia message service technology enables this model to capture the picture of the intruder and send it via local GSM/GPRS service provider to the car owner or the police. The Malaysian community police cops (RakanCop) were also directly involved in this research project. The result of the study showed that the system can transmit data between 3 and 5 minutes with consistent delay time recorded in certain situations. The overall system delay is 172 seconds which was due to software and hardware implementation that need to be compensated. Additional analyses of time delay of Multimedia Message Service transmission between service providers showed that CELCOM was the suitable service provider to be used for this project. This is due to the lowest time delay of Multimedia Message Service transmission (13.29 seconds) recorded for the data transmission. In the event of theft, the proposed model is able to inform the local police and users who can then track the car easily using GPS system that can be linked to Google Earth and other mapping software. In addition, the proposed model offers suitable and economic solution for car theft problems especially in terms of its cost effectiveness, reasonable time factor, and the unlimited distance in which both SMS and MMS can be received. Moreover, the database provides accessible information of the vehicle. The limitations for this study include the lack of high resolution of camera with special features and a specifically designed SIM card for a more effective system.