Mobile App for Tractor Rollover Detection and Emergency Notification

Abstract

<abstract> <bold>Abstract.</bold> The objective of this paper is to investigate the stability of a tractor under different ground and operating conditions using a smartphone. A mathematical model was proposed and tested to monitor the rollover stability of a tractor. Signals from the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors of an iPhone, mounted on a remote controlled utility tractor, and the physical dimensions of the tractor were used to calculate an overall stability index value. Two filtering techniques, a complementary filter and a Kalman filter, were used to filter the noise from the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors before determining the angle and angular rate. An iOS application was created to implement the model to monitor the stability of the tractor, to display warning messages when the tractor becomes unstable and to report an emergency message when a rollover or overturning accident happens. The experimental results showed that both of the filtering techniques were able to filter the noise signals and signal drifts from the sensors significantly and improved the sensor data. In addition, the proposed modified stability index model presented in this paper successfully monitored the stability of the tractor during its operation. Finally, the iPhone application was able to detect tractor instabilities and transmit notification messages with the GPS location information to the emergency contacts in case of an accident.