Prototype system development for wireless vehicle speed monitoring

Vehicle speed monitoring and management of the associated data in an intelligent and efficient way is an important issue in modern transportation system in order to reduce road accidents. The aim of this work is to develop an automatic wireless system for monitoring vehicle speed on the road, identify a speeding vehicle and imposing penalty for the speeding offenders. In this work, a prototype system has been developed in a laboratory environment to generate random speed data using a mechanical wheel, measure the speed data with a Shimmer wireless sensor and transfer the data wirelessly to a client computer for further analysis. Software has been developed using a Java based socket programming technique to monitor the vehicle speed in a server computer and to send the data associated with a speeding vehicle to a remotely placed client computer. The graphical user interface (GUI) can visually display the speed of a vehicle at any particular time. The functionality of the software has been tested by simulating different traffic scenarios with low and high speed limits (40 and 60 km/hr respectively). To do that a high or low speed limit can be set in the GUI. The mechanical wheel is run at different speeds and the GUI continuously displays the speed. If the vehicle speed is higher than the set speed limit for the road, the system automatically detects it and generates a report with the time of speeding, vehicle number, vehicle speed etc. to be saved in the client computer in order to take further necessary actions for the speeding offender

Developing intelligent software interface for wireless monitoring of vehicle speed and management of associated data

The aim of this work is to develop an intelligent wireless system for monitoring vehicle speed, identify speeding vehicles and imposing penalty for the speeding offenders. A prototype system has been developed in a laboratory environment to generate random speed data using a mechanical wheel (acts as a vehicle), measure the speed data with a Shimmer wireless sensor and transfer the data wirelessly to a server computer for further analysis. Software interface has been developed using Java based socket-programming to monitor the vehicle speed in a server computer and to send the data associated with a speeding vehicle to a remotely placed client computer. The functionality of the software has been tested by experimenting different traffic scenarios. If the vehicle speed is higher than the set speed limit for the road, the system automatically detects it and generates a report with the time of speeding, vehicle number, vehicle speed, etc. The report is saved in a central database (client computer) in order to take further necessary actions for the speeding offender. The experimental evaluation results show that the system can measure and monitor the vehicle speeds wirelessly and manage the speeding data automatically

8.02 - Health and Environmental Impacts in Metal Machining Processes

Metal cutting machining is one of the key techniques in the manufacturing industries for shaping a particular product or a component. Turning, milling, drilling, and grinding are the most common traditional machining processes, where mechanical energy is applied to remove material from a stock with the help of a cutting fluid. New machining processes such as electrodischarge, laser beam, and water jet cutting are also emerging as alternatives to traditional processes and for specialized applications. Like any other manufacturing techniques, machining produces many by-products or wastes including metal chips/swarf impregnated with cutting fluid, spent cutting fluid, oil contaminated water, oil mist, metal dust, and unnecessary energy usage. These wastes have major consequences for health, the environment, productivity, and manufacturing costs. In recent years, owing to the increasing social awareness of health and environmental issues, new and tighter legislations are being introduced in order to minimize the impact on the environment, hence creating a more sustainable world. Machining industries are also being forced to reduce their impacts on environment through legislation introduced by both government and international bodies. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the sources of concern with respect to machining processes and their impact on health and the environment. In addition, advances in the development of emerging techniques and technologies associated with machining, cutting tools, coolants/lubricants, recycling, energy saving, and product design and planning are reviewed and discussed, in order to minimize impact

8.03 - Health and Safety Issues in Emerging Surface Engineering Techniques

Surface engineering has become a well-established technology and is an extremely versatile means of improving component performance in different science and engineering applications. As with any manufacturing technology, surface engineering processes present environmental, health, and safety hazards as well. Owing to the increasing stringent legislations and national and international standards on health and safety, a number of emerging surface engineering processes (e.g., physical vapor deposition) have been developed recently. Although health and safety concerns involved in traditional surface engineering processes (e.g., electroplating) have been minimized to a great extent in the emerging processes; however, new hazards and risks have also been introduced during this development. The motivation for writing this chapter is to give a brief overview on the different aspects of health and safety issues, which arise from emerging surface engineering processes. In addition, the necessary steps that need to be considered to address the health and safety concerns associated with the emerging processes have been discussed

1.02 - Techniques for Assessing the Properties of Advanced Ceramic Materials

Advanced ceramics are emerging as ideal materials for a wide range of engineering applications, such as cutting tools, engine, turbines, space vehicles, and biomedical applications, among others, due to their superior properties as compared to traditional ceramics. The properties of advanced ceramics mainly differ from those of traditional ceramics in their processing, composition, and microstructure. Therefore, in order to get a better understanding of advanced ceramics and to further develop them for particular engineering applications, extensive use must be made of the characterization method for evaluating enhanced microstructural, mechanical, electrical, optical, and biomedical properties. The objective of this chapter is to give a brief overview of characterization techniques that are commonly used to evaluate the diverse properties of the advanced ceramics