Mangaluru: Sahyadri College of Engineering & Management students Navjith P Karkera, Semester V, Mechanical Engineering and Jagath Biddappa, Semester V, Electronics and Communication Engineering, interns at Sahyadri Edu Dreamers R&D Pvt. Ltd. were awarded with the Young Indians Award for Best Young Innovators for their Smart Electronic Helmet for Motorcycle invention. The award was given by Dr. Harshavardhan, Incumbent Minister, Ministry of Science and Technology (India) and Ministry of Earth Sciences, in Delhi. The Innovation Initiative-2015 Competition; a joint initiative of AICTE, Government of India (DST) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was held at IIT Delhi.
A total of 2700 innovations were received from across the country from students, industry professionals, individual and grassroots innovators in various fields such as Life Sciences, Electronics and Communications, IT, Energy and Engineering Technologies. After a first level of screening by an expert panel comprising of eminent scientists and industrialists, the top 76 innovations had been showcased at the i3 National Fair at IIT Delhi. From these, a high level national jury will select the top 9 innovations (one special innovation) based on the technical feasibility, market potential of the innovation and its impact on the industry, society and environment.
What makes it happen at Sahyadri:
At Sahyadri project based learning is the essence of Education. We expect education should contribute to the society. To foster this, a dual strategy is envisaged.
Firstly to identify the talent pool with the innovation and creativity as their passion through the Sahyadri Science Talent Hunt (SSTH) where cream students of PUC/XII are encouraged to pursue their project with the seed money given by the institute. This SSTH-2015 saw 300 projects of social relevance. This is envisaged on lines of INSPIRE where management spends a crore as a CSR activity.
Secondly when such talent join the institute, they are made to pursue Engineering education through project based learning through Sahyadri Centre of Social Innovation in First year having feel for societal problems and followed by Projects support scheme through SPSS scheme, this was envisaged on lines of VGST (TRIP) scheme.
This structured inter linked approach has facilitated students to achieve laurels through innovative projects exhibited at Premier institutes like IIT’s, IISc, NIT’s etc.
Management of Sahyadri wishes to extend beyond the initial support of seed money for projects to also to commercialize the innovation into product through their Entrepreneurship Cell.
About Smart Helmet:
The Smart Electronic Helmet has been designed and developed with an intention to revolutionize the use of helmets especially in India. This Helmet has been designed to improve and provide optimum safety to the motorcyclists so as to prevent motorcycle accidents and reduce accident related injuries and also to enhance the riding experience of motorcyclists by providing futuristic edge to the helmet. Intention is to make helmets smart, technologically advanced and user friendly with safety always in mind. A lot of time has been spent to analyze and research the current situation and problems faced by the motorcyclist and to provide effective and user friendly solutions by keeping law always in mind. It also has effective override protection features to prevent any chances of tricking the governing features of the helmet. The helmet has been designed and developed particularly for Indian market in term of the usage condition, requirements, traffic rules and regulations, safety and also the cost.
Thus the Smart helmet (Patent pending) will compel anyone to use and ride along with it.
List of features in Smart Helmet–
● Revolutionary Features
✓ Intelligent Hands free communication. i:e. In case of an incoming call, the call can be only received if the rider comes to rest thus complying with the law
✓ Accident location alert to Health response unit and relatives
✓ Wireless music at a safe volume so that the ambient sound is also heard by the rider
✓ Provides Voice navigation to the rider to navigate through unknown terrain
✓ Safety light to improve the visibility of the rider to the oncoming traffic in the night
✓ Smartphone application
✓ NFC for easy pairing of the helmet and Smartphone.
✓ Voice command for easy interface
● Implementable features to enhance safety
✓ The motorcycle won’t start and cease to function without wearing the helmet properly and securing the strap
✓ The motorcycle also won’t start and cease to function if the rider is drunk above the threshold level as set by the Indian Motor Vehicle Act.
● Features under research
✓ Power generation in the helmet by means of electric wind turbine and flexible solar panel so as to increase the usage time
✓ Internet of Things to synchronize with other devices and gadgets of the user
LED beam lights to improve night vision when necessary.