IOT Based Real-Time Vehicle Tracking System

1st Abdullah H. Alquhali, 2nd Mardeni Roslee, 3rd Mohamad Y. Alias, 4th Khalid S. Mohamed
Centre for wireless technology (CWT)
Faculty of engineering, Multimedia university
Cyberjaya 631000, Malaysia
∗1
[email protected], [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected]
2

Abstract—Recently, it has became critically important to have In [7], the proposed system suggests that the distance
flexibility on monitoring and controlling physical properties and traveled by the vehicle could be calculated and stored in the
personal data, respectively. Although physical transportation database for future further analysis. The data could be viewed
systems have made it easier for the public to travel, it has
turned to be hazard in several ways. Therefore, a real-time in real-time or on demand. Arduino Uno is utilized to create
vehicles tracking and monitoring device has been proposed in this design and the incorporation of GPS and GSM allows
this paper. Additionally, develop a system using Arduino Uno R3 the system to transmit the coordinates of the position of the
is being developed by our team, global system for mobile (GSM) vehicle in real-time to the mobile phone of the user.
device, and global positioning system (GPS) to track the exact The authors of [8] proposed to an internet of things (IoT)
and accurate position of the vehicle at any location. The device is
also equipped with display to show the information on the current application to make the tracking device easier to communicate
location of the vehicle to the user. Furthermore, two software are with other electronic devices. The paper focuses on the design
utilized to display the data namely ThingSpeak which is used to of a school bus monitoring system. A predictions algorithm is
display the trend of the vehicle’s motion by using longitude and utilized to code the system such that the time of departure
latitude charts, and Freeboard which is utilized to display the and arrival of the bus could be predicted using the route of
same information in the form of a map that is accessible to all.
Results show that users can easily track their vehicle location via the bus. The prototype also includes an application that could
their mobile phone through the internet. The entire system has be installed and launched on any smart phone. The limitation
been tested thoroughly in real time and it has proven to function is that the application does not allow the data to be stored so
successfully in helping users to locate their vehicles in the event that the parents or the user could view the statistics later in
of a theft. future i.e. the information could not be used to optimize the
Index Terms—Vehicles tracking, IoT, ThingSpeak, Smart de-
vices, GPS route that the bus takes. However, it has been concluded that
the results are 100 percent accurate and the machine learning
algorithm used to train and test the system is able to predict
I. I NTRODUCTION
the arrival time with high accuracy.
The crime involving vehicles theft has been increasing in In [9], it is suggested that more applications could be
the past few years especially in Malaysia. The latest reports implemented in observing and controlling our cars such as
by general insurance association of Malaysia (PIAM) confirm the GPS which is a small device used, can be used to monitor
that approximately 60 vehicles are stolen every day and there vehicles in connection to the tracking software to obtain real-
had been 11,796 cases from January until June 2016. On the time feedback data. The authors have also proposed a GPS
other hand, all types of vehicles can be targeted by thieves to based vehicle navigation system whereby it is done by utilising
sell them in parts which complicates the work of respective GSM connectivity to convey the information of the vehicle
departments to find them. Therefore, it is important and crucial such as location, distance travelled, and the time interval
to track the vehicles in real time to relief the concerns of theft between the collections. After every prefixed time duration, the
and to make it easier for the respective departments in case of data is collected and transmitted to the tracking and monitoring
any theft [1]–[5]. server.
The work in [6] proposed an Arduino based vehicle track- The authors of [10] propose to increase the GPS more accu-
ing system that utilizes the technology of global positioning racy by utilizing the satellite signals to send the coordinates of
system (GPS) to track the location of vehicles regardless the longitude and latitude to the system to receive the critical
to its movement or static. It also utilizes the technology of data. This system also utilizes micro-controller. The user of the
global system for mobile (GSM) to display the coordinates GPS device facilitates a two-way communication exchange.
of the position of the vehicle on the cell phone using the The functionality of the GSM modem is similar to the regular
Google map as a user friendly application. The entire system process of cellular communication in terms of the requirement
processes in real-time whereby the in-vehicle device provides of a SIM card for both systems. The limitation is that if the
the vehicle’s geographic coordinates. The system has been internet access discontinues for any reason, the communication
able to practically demonstrate its effective performance for will break off until the net is connected again. Two parts were
tracking the position of the vehicles from anywhere at any suggested in the GPS/GSM based system, a mobile unit a
time. controlling station. The processes of the system containing

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the several transmission lines of data have all been working
successfully. At that point, these findings are well suited with
present GPS technology. The device has to be fixed in the
vehicle so the owner shall be find the location of the vehicle.
As shown in [11], remote signals could be transferred
over the network of the GSM. This includes two sectors: the
remote observation station and the monitoring center. Firstly,
a computer and a GSM communication module comprise the
monitoring center. VB is utilized for the software monitoring
center and the remote monitoring station. It can be demon-
strated that the communication between the remote monitoring
station system and the monitoring center can be controlled by
the system.
In [15]–[18] the authors introduce an indoor positioning
system to overcome the line-of-sight (LOS) issue where GPS
requires an unobstructed LOS from the receiver to the satellite.
They utilize the availability of access points (APs)in the indoor
environment to measure the received signal strength using
mobile device. The fingerprinting technique is used to estimate
the user location based on Bayesian network. The result
demonstrate an improvement the system accuracy (below 3
meters) while a few of APs are used.
Cloud computing infrastructure has also been used by [19].
A group of Sensors are utilized for supervising the driving
settings counting the velocity at which the car (or any other
vehicle) is traveling, and even the fuel level. The GSM unit
then sends the information to the cloud server. Similarly, the
authors of [12] presented an alcohol sensor that can be attached
to the vehicle to analyze the car movement to determine the
if the driver is drunk or not in order to avoid accidents.
In this paper, a design and an implementation of the vehicle
tracking anti-theft system is proposed. The proposed system
secures and protects the moving vehicles by using real time
GPS system along with the GSM, which helps the user
determining the precise location of the vehicle. This system
updates the user on every instance of the moving vehicle
through their GPS receiver.
The remainder of the paper is divided into three sections.
The system modeling is presented in Section II, the results
and the discussions are presented in Section III, and the paper
is concluded in Section IV.
II. S YSTEM MODEL
The vehicle tracked has to transfer certain information to
the receiver such as the location and speed through a device
that is installed inside the vehicle. As shown in the Figure 1
The tracking system on the moving vehicle works on the basis
of the satellite through which the signals are being transmitted
and received. Fig. 1. Flow Chart of Real-time Vehicle Tracking
Moreover, The block diagram of the GPS tracking system
for anti-theft is shown in Figure 2.
The most important part of this project is the transmission module has been used to act as a transmitter. The GPS will
of the signals from the GSM module to the GPS receiver. identify the coordinates of the location at which the vehicle
Hence an Arduino UNO has been used to manage the entire is , while the GSM module transmits those coordinates to
mechanism of the vehicle tracking system. Since a receiver and ThingSpeak via SIM card internet data. A16x2 LCD connected
a transmitter are required for the tracking system, the GSM to Arduino UNO display the detected coordinates and show

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 Fig. 2. Block Diagram of Real-time Vehicle Tracking Using Arduino

status messages of the detected coordinates. ThingSpeak is tracking sensitivity extends positioning accuracy with
utilized as the platform where it stores the coordinates that PPP+SBAS and must be normal in a situation with
GSM module send to it and Freeboard as the platform for the unhampered view of the sky at a certain period of time.
user to seek their vehicle location. In this paper, we have used 4) Liquid Crystal Display
ThingSpeak, Free-board, GPS Module GYNEO6MV2 and A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a device that is used
GSM Module SIM900A as the hardware to form a complete to display data or messages as per the application of the
system. Furthermore, in this paper the major hardware used is project. It consists of a simple flat panel that displays
as follows: data utilising external light properties. This is known as
1) Arduino Uno R3 the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals. This
It has been chosen over other types of Arduino Uno means that the liquid crystals do not produce light on
products because it is the most advanced in terms of their own to display. Rather, they rely on the external
design and usage. The board has been integrated with light. In this paper, the LCD displays the exact location
the ATmega328 micro-controller [13]. of the vehicle via the longitude and the latitude of
2) SIM900A GSM/GPRS Module the earth using the tracking information given by GPS
SIM900A module is a complete Quad-Band GSM/GPRS module
module that incorporates the GPS mechanism with the 5) Software Components
satellite tracking system. The module comes with a During the tracking process, the GPS receiver receives
feature called toolkit that allows a SIM card to be the information in the form of longitude and latitude
infused in it. The benefit of this module is that it is of the position of the vehicle as read by the satel-
designed to be small in size and is therefore, very lite. The information is then sent via GSM device to
compact. Whereas the tool-kit is small, it combines the ThingSpeak and is simultaneously displayed on the LCD
properties of both GPS and GPRS in SMT package, and screen. Both GPS and GSM devices are connected via
the features that it contains are more, plus it is time and Arduino Uno R3 micro-controller. The geographical
cost efficient [14]. Additionally, the module comes with location along with the geographical coordinates are
an easy connection facility where it can be attached via then displayed on the map using the Freeboard software
USB ports. Therefore, no extra cables or interface are which is an HTML-based platform. Since the coordi-
required to connect it with a GPS network. The GSM nates of the vehicle location are updated every 5 seconds,
module is used to communicate to the system. In this ThingSpeak assists in creating a database which can be
work, a SIM900A hardware function is to transfer the accessed later at any time. The JavaScript of the browser
data from Arduino to ThingSpeak via SIM card internet allows the information to be displayed through simple
data. charts to show the trend on the browser page and it
3) GY-NEO6MV2 GPS Module integrates the trend into the maps for the user as well.
The GY-NEO6MV2 is a complete GPS engine module 6) ThingSpeak
that features super sensitivity, ultra-low power and a The IoT analytics platform service allows to analyze,
small form factor. This boards which require contains visualize and aggregate live data streams in the cloud
features such as a built-in EEPROM for processing, whereby it is known as ThingSpeak [12]. Instant concep-
an antenna for communication and the u-blox NEO- tions of the data posted by your devices to ThingSpeak is
6M GPS. These features make the board compatible obtained from ThingSpeak. It could be performed in an
with several controller boards that require the usage online data processing and analysis form as it can also be
of a GPS module in their applications. Its -161 dBm executed in MATLAB. However, ThingSpeak shows the

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 longitude and latitude at which the vehicle is situated
at. It also shows the data that have been collected by
the GPS module where they have been updated via SIM
card internet data. Thus, the ThingSpeak will show the
same value that have been show in LCD.
7) Freeboard
Freeboard is an HTML-based platform that allows data
to be displayed using user customised layouts. The
user can add features to the display, which are usually
displayed on a browser page, according to their own
application necessities. The framework of Freeboard
allows it to fetch information from the sources of the
data. Thereby, collecting data and representing it in a
simple way to the user using the widgets. The main Fig. 3. Complete circuit of Real-time vehicle tracking for theft prevention
positive aspect of the platform is that it gives flexibility using Arduino(2-1)
to the user to avoid the setting up of a server for the
processing of the data. Thus, reducing the overall cost of
the data monitoring. Additionally, it gives convenience
to the integrated devices to provide a presentable view
of the complex designs of the web page designs. The
location of vehicle that can be tracked in real time using
Freeboard which is utilised to show the present position
of the vehicle where the information has been collected
from ThingSpeak and applied in the platform to show the
latitude and longitude of vehicle in real time. Freeboard
will be used as user platform to check their vehicle
location.
8) Arduino IDE
To achieve a functional tracking system for the vehicle,
the selection of a proper programming language requires
that it would be compatible with all the three devices,
Fig. 4. Complete circuit of Real-time vehicle tracking for theft prevention
namely, Arduino Uno R3, GSM device, and GPS device. using Arduino(2-2)
Therefore, C-programming language has been utilised
to code the Arduino Uno using Arduino IDE software.
The coding utilises void setup to initiate the program using SIM800L module to ThingSpeak website and then the
whereas, void loop executes the code. The same software location is exported from Thingspeak website to be displayed
is used to allow a successful transfer of data to and in freeboard website. However, before uploading the values
from the satellite. This provides a reliable transmission of latitude and longitude to the Thingspeak, Arduino software
of data into the database via Arduino Uno R3. Arduino must read the values from the GPS and show them in the
IDE software is an open source software which can be Serial Monitor of the software. The values which are going to
utilised to create a program according to the application be uploaded to the Thingspeak the same as the values which
required. The software compiles the code and uploads it that have been displayed in the serial monitor. The values are
into the micro controller on Arduino Uno’s board. updated every 5 seconds. Therefore, if the vehicle is in motion,
the values of latitude and longitude will change when GPS
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION module sends the updated values.
This section presents the results and discussion of vehicle Figure 5 shows the exact latitude and longitude of the
tracking system, where the circuit is made up of several current vehicle location displayed on LCD after GSM module
components which comprise of Arduino UNO board, GY- receives the information of vehicle location from Arduino.
NEO6MV2 GPS module, SIM900A GSM module, recharge- The LCD display is frequently updating the location values
able battery, 2x16 crystal liquid display (LCD), and the wire in accordance to the updates from the GPS module.
connection. The proposed vehicle tracking system in Figure Additionally, Figure 6 shows the data of one of the locations
4 shows the complete circuit of real-time vehicle tracking for while Figure 7 and Figure 8 show the latitude and longitude
theft prevention using Arduino inside the PVC box which is values of the second location where it is been changed based
hiding in a boot compartment of a car. on the new location of the vehicle, respectively.
GPS module (GPS Module GY- NEO6MV2) retrieves the Figure 9 shows the location of vehicle on freeboard in the
location of the vehicle. The information retrieved will be sent form of latitude and longitude on Google maps. The latitude

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Fig. 5. Current latitude and longitude of vehicle location display on LCD

Fig. 8. Another example(2-2)of ThingSpeak received data by Arduino

Fig. 6. Example of ThingSpeak received data by Arduino

Fig. 9. Vehicle location on Freeboard

IV. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, smart vehicle tracking system, controlled by
arduino Uno has been designed and tested successfully. In
order to provide an efficient tracking system, the information
provided needs to be in real time. An Arduino module is
interfaced to GPS and GSM module and a smart-phone used
to coordinate geographical location of the stolen vehicle.
The GSM module is used to send data via internet to the
Fig. 7. Another example(2-1)of ThingSpeak received data by Arduino ThingSpeak whereby Freeboard receives data from ThingS-
peak and display the data in Google maps. By having latitude
and longitude information, the users can track their vehicles
of the vehicle can be seen on the bottom left of the freeboard, location on any electronic maps platform using the internet.
while the longitude is in the middle. The date and time can The accuracy, precision and reliability of the system have been
be seen as in the bottom right corner of the page as well. At analyzed by placing it in geographical locations with various
the same time, users can also see the exact location in Google accessibility of satellites. However, the reliability of the system
maps as shown by the red marker in Figure 9. decreased gradually when the GPS was transported from an

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