International Journal of Automotive Technology, Vol. ?, No. ?, pp. ??

(year) Copyright  2000 KSAE

Serial#Given by KSAE

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SECURITY SYSTEM FOR CAR

BASED ON GPS AND GSM TECHNOLOGY

Edin Mujčić1)*, Sandra Pajazetović2) and Una Drakulić3)

1)
Faculty of electrical engineering, University of Bihać, Associate professor, Bihać 77000, BiH
2)
Faculty of electrical engineering, University of Bihać, Postgraduate student, Bihać 77000, BiH
3)
Faculty of electrical engineering, University of Bihać, Teaching assistant, Bihać 77000, BiH

(Received date ; Revised date ; Accepted date ) * Please leave blank

ABSTRACT Nowadays, we can say with certainty that we live in a dangerous world. Every day we hear reports of burglaries
in homes, apartments, theft of cars, etc. Regardless of the existence of classic alarm systems, security burglary continues to occur.
Theft of cars is particularly pronounced. According to official reports, 774 cars were stolen in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2017.
To solve this problem, we propose the smart alarm system based on microcontroller, GPS and GSM. In this system, detection of
burglary in the car is performed using a passive infrared sensor. In case of security breach, PIR sensor reacts and sends
information about it to ATMega328 microcontroller. The microcontroller processes the received information and acts on the
SIM900A GSM GPRS module. This module sends the SMS message to the car owner about security breach in the car. If the car
owner does not reset the alarm within 10 minutes, the projected system will send a new SMS message but now with the current
GPS coordinates of the car location. This process of sending SMS message with GPS coordinates will be repeated every 10
minutes, until the car owner resets the alarm. In that way the car owner owns the information of current locations of his car, and
can forward them to police. Reducing of energy consumption is achieved using a "sleep mode" for microcontroller ATmega328.

KEY WORDS : Car alarm system, Microcontroller, Infrared sensor, GPS, GSM

(How car alarms work, 2018). In our country, almost

* Edin Mujčić. e-mail: [email protected] every day we hear that some car was stolen, regardless
of the expensive security systems. It was reported that
775 vehicles were stolen in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a
1. INTRODUCTION relatively small state, last year (Jabuka tv, 2018). So,
there is a big problem. It is therefore important to
The way of life in the 21st century disrupts the sense of incorporate a security system that will provide the
security. More and more robberies, hijackings, and more greatest safety for your car. The most popular existing
are reported every day. Also, the increased number of car security system is car alarm and it has a lot
stolen cars has reduced the sense of security because disadvantages: distance-cover area, the siren cannot be
today most adults have one car. The car is a part of heard over a long distance, same sound (siren) for most
everyday life, it is used to go and get back from work, of the cars, false alarm, not 100% secure and cannot be
school, kindergarten, shops, travel and more. Daily heard in buildings (Hnin and Hla ,2014).
people spend a third of a day in a car and it is very In this paper is developed special car alarm system that
important that people know that they are safe. After a is based on Atmel AVR ATMega328 microcontroller,
decade from when a Otto gasoline powered automobile GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and
was patented by Karl Benz was documented a case of GPS (Global Positioning System). The PIR (Passive
car theft in early 1896. (Integration of latest car alarm Infrared) sensor was used to detect the presence. In the
system, 2018). From that early era to today, cars have event of an unauthorized entry into the car, the alarm is
been a natural target for thieves: They are valuable, activated and the SMS message is sent to the car owner
reasonably easy to resell and they have a built-in about security breach. If the car owner does not reset the
getaway system. Some studies claim that a car gets alarm, new SMS message with GPS coordinates of the
broken into every 20 seconds in the United States alone current geographic location of the car will be sent after
 Edin Mujčić

10 minutes. These messages are sent as long as the car is similar to average factory alarm system, except with
owner does not reset the alarm. more control options. 2-Way paging car alarm system
means two way communications to alarm. The Viper
2. OVERVIEW OF CAR ALARM SYSTEMS Responder 350 is an example of this. If the car is locked,
the remote will inform car owner that the car was
successfully locked. If the car is broken, the alarm will
Electronic device installed in a car to discourge theft of notify the owner that the car is in danger. 2-Way paging
the vehicle or car contents is car alarm. Year 1913 systems have range limitations about a mile between car
unknown prisoner from Denver had invented an early and its transmitter. Starting car from a mile away sounds
version of car alarm for use. Three years later was like a good thing. Car alarm remote start systems are
published alarm inspired by an early version of a remote made of car alarms with the ability to start car from a
starter. This version is based on idea that the car owner distance. The AutoPage C3 RS-665 is a great example
carries a receiver, which would buzz if the car ignition of this type of car alarm systems. If it’s cold outside, we
system was tampered with(Car alarm, 2018). can turn our car on to heat it up or even cool it down.
Security features are built in and active while car is
In todays world exists a lot different versions of car running without its driver. 2-way car alarm remote start
alarm systems and most of them is based on one or systems give all the features in one package.
more sensors connected on some siren. In someone tries The AutoPage C3-RS730 LCD is an all-in-one system.
to get into the car, the siren would start. In the extended
form, modern car alarm systems consist of (How car Table1. Best all-in-one car alarms by CarAudioNow.
alarms work, 2018): CAR REMOTE PAGING
SMART-
No. PHONE $
ALARM START TYPE
APP
- An array of sensors that can include switches, 1
Compustar
yes 2 way no $$
CS6900-AS
pressure sensor and motion detectors
- A siren, often able to create a variety of 2
Crimestopper
yes 2 way no $$
SP-502
sounds so that you can pick a distinct sound
for your car 3
Viper
yes 2 way yes $$$
VSS5000
- A radio receiver to allow wireless control
from a key fob 4
Python
yes 2 way yes $$
PS5000
- An auxiliary battery so that the alarm can
operate even if the main battery gets 5 Avital 5303L yes 2 way yes $$
disconnected
- A computer control unit that monitors 6
Compustar
yes 1 way no $
CS700-AS
everything and sounds the alarm
7 Viper 5906V yes 2 way no $$$
Considering the installation time, car alarms can be
divided into two categories (Car alarm, 2018):
OEM (built into the car at the factory) and Today's car alarms have sensors placed all around the
Aftermarket (installed at any time after the car has been car to monitor several things. From a door opening to
built, such as by the new car dealer, an auto accessories big damage and tire jacking, great alarm systems will
store, or the car owner). alert us in real time what is happening to car. A list of
Based on their activation method, car alarm systems can 2018's top rated and reviewed car alarms, according to
be divided into two main categories (Types of car alarm the source CarAudioNow (Best car alarm systems, 2018) is
systems, 2018): passive (once engine is turned off and car shown in Table 1.
is locked, the alarm system automatically arms) and
active (need to manually activate and deactivate an 3. DESIGN OF CAR ALARM USING
active car alarm system by pressing a transmitter button). MICROCONTROLLER, GSM AND GPS
As mentioned in the introduction, product specialist,
Kyle D. has sorted car alarms in several groups and they The aim of the project is designing the car alarm with
are described in the following way (Different Types of the following features:
Car Alarms and Remote Start Systems, News on the Car 1. activating the alarm by movement
Audio Industry, 2010). 2. in case of alarm activation, the projected system
A shock sensor, siren and a remote control are parts of a
sends SMS messages
standard car alarm system. The Viper 350 Plus is good
example of this type of car alarm. A standard car alarm
 Edin Mujčić

3. after a while (10 minutes), the projected system interface, and output), inexpensive and can
sends a new SMS message with the GPS communicate with software running on your computer
coordinates of the current location of the car (Purkayastha at al, 2014). The Arduino Uno Boards
4. security system repeats sending SMS message (Figure. 2) are uploaded with specific programs that
with the GPS coordinates until the alarm is reset enables them to perform their required operations
by the car owner (Felić and Mujčić, 2018).
5. the car owner can influence on the individual The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on
parts of the car and disable further movement of the ATMega328. It has 28 pins, 14 digital input/output
the car by sending the SMS message. pins (6 of 14 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog
inputs, power supply pins, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a
USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a
reset button.

Figure 2. Arduino Uno board.

ATMega328 microcontroller is Atmel’s product and is a

low-power CMOS 8-bit microcontroller based on the
AVR enhanced RISC architecture. It has 32 Kbytes of
In-System Programmable with Read-While-Write
capabilities, 1Kbytes of EEPROM, 2 Kbytes SRAM
(Husni at al, 2016).

3.2. GPS and RoyalTek REB-5216 GPS module

Figure 1. Flowchart of car alarm system based on GPS
and GSM/GPRS. GPS (Global Positioning System) is a radio-based
navigation system that provides information about the
Based on the above requirements, a flowchart of desired coordinates of the location, velocity and time to users
system can be created. It is shown in Figur 1. worldwide. Users only need a GPS receiver to
For the realization of the desired system we will use: determine the coordinates of the location (Đuzelić and
Mujčić, 2015). The accuracy of coordinates of the
- Arduino IDE and Arduino Uno board with current location depending only of the type of GPS
ATMega328 microcontroller receiver. GPS consists of three parts: satellites orbiting
the Earth, control and monitoring stations on Earth, and
- GPS and RoyalTek REB-5216 GPS module
the GPS receiver (Speak at al, 2009). Today, GPS are
- GSM and SMS technology and SIM900A module used for: human activity (Al-Khedher, 2011), GPS
- Infrared motion sensor detector vehicle tracking (Verma and Bhatia, 2013; Hapsari at
- Relay Module al, 2005).
A GPS receiver (RoyalTek REB-5216 GPS module,
Figure 3) is used to determine the precise location of a
3.1. Arduino IDE and Arduino Uno board with car, person or other asset.
ATMega328 microcontroller

The Arduino integrated development environment

(IDE) is a cross-platform application written in Java.
Arduino programs are written in C or C++ (Mujčić at al,
2016). Arduino is flexible (offers a variety of inputs,
 Edin Mujčić

sensor, 2018). The PIR sensor has two slots. Each slot is
made of a special material that is sensitive to infrared
radiation. When the sensor is idle, both slots detect the
same amount of infrared radiation. When a body passes
by, it intercepts one half of the PIR sensor, which causes
a positive differential change between the two halves.
When the body leaves the sensing area, the reverse
happens. These changes of pulses are what is detected
(Figure 5b) (Mujčić, Škrgić and Drakulić, 2018).

Figure 3. RoyalTek REB-5216 GPS module.

It has next features: Micro SD interface, active

antenna design with high receive sensitivity, compatible
normal antenna, extremely fast time to first fix at low
signal level and UART interface.

3.3. GSM technology, SMS technology and Figure 5. a) PIR sensor b) Work principle of PIR sensor.
SIM900A module
3.5. Relay module
Global System of Mobile (GSM) and Short Message
A relay is an electrically operated switch. Many relays
Service (SMS) technologies are a common feature all
use an electromagnet to mechanically operate a switch,
mobile network service providers (Fan at al, 2006;
but other operating principles are also used, such as
Hsiao and Chang, 2006). Using of SMS technology has
solid-state relays. Relays are used where it is necessary
become popular because it is an inexpensive, convenient
to control a circuit by a separate low-power signal, or
and accessible way of transferring and receiving data
where several circuits must be controlled by one signal.
with high reliability (SIM_900A GSM GPRS module,
In this project it is used 2-Channel 5 V Relay Module. It
2018). The SIM900A (Figure 4) is a complete Dual-
is shown in Figure 6.
band GSM/GPRS solution in a SMT module which can
be embedded in the customer applications.

Figure 6. The 2-channel 5V relay module.

Figure 4. SIM900A GSM GPRS module. This module consists of two relays with optocouplers at
the input, in order to isolate the microcontroller from the
Featuring an industry-standard interface, the SIM900A relay.
delivers GSM/GPRS 900/1800MHz performance for
voice, SMS, Data, and Fax in a small form factor and 3.6. Development of security system for car based
with low power consumption (Mujčić at al, 2017). on microcontroller, GPS and GSM technology
3.4. Infrared motion sensor detector In this section of the paper is described a development
of car alarm system based on microcontroller, GSM and
PIR (Passive InfraRed Sensor) sensor (Figure 5a) is GPS technology. For the realization of the car alarm
motion detector. It detects movement of people, animals system, we need a microcontroller that processes all the
or other objects (PIR passive infrared proximity motion information and connects the system to a one functional
 Edin Mujčić

whole. Because easier communication and Table 2. Connecting Arduino Uno with other electrical
programming, we used the Arduino board with the parts.
ATMega328 microcontroller. In order for the car owner
ARDUINO UNO
to communicate with the microcontroller using SMS ELECTRICAL PARTS
messages, a GSM GPRS module is required. In this PIR SENSOR DP2
project, the SIM900A GPS GPRS module was used. To
determine the current geographic location of the car, the RX TX DP5
GPS MODULE
RoyalTek REB-5216 GPS module was used. Finally,
for motion detection we used the HC-SR501 PIR sensor TX RX DP6

and relay module is used for the car lights and siren RX TX DP7
sound when the alarm is activated. The block diagram GSM GPRS MODULE
of the described system is shown in Figure 7. TX RX DP8

Relay 1 DP9
RELAY MODULE
Relay 2 DP 10

PIR sensor output could be connected to any digital

input pin on the Arduino board. In this case, PIR sensor
is connected to digital pin 2 because digital pins usable
for interrupts are 2 and 3, what is important for
additional reducing of energy consumption. Thanks to
that, it is possible to get Arduino to sleep mode.
Figure 7. Block diagram of the car alarm system.
Sleep mode is used to reduce energy consumption on
Based on block diagram, we have connected all the
Arduino boards. The finished car alarm system is shown
electrical parts. After that, we got the system shown in
in Figure 9.
Figure 8.

Figure 9. Appearance of the finished car alarm system.

Figure 8. The projected car alarm system.
After connecting all parts, the ATMega328
Arduino boards support serial communication on pins 0 microcontroller was programmed using the Arduino
and 1, but if we need more serial ports, we have to use IDE. The experimental analysis of the projected system
SoftwareSerial Library . The SoftwareSerial Library has is described is the following section.
been developed to allow serial communication on the
other digital pins of boards. TX and RX are used for
data transmission. TX and RX are abbreviations for 4. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF THE
Transmit and Receive, respectively. This is very PROJECTED CAR ALARM SYSTEM
important for connecting Arduino with GPS and GSM
GPRS SIM900A modules. RX of module must be In this section of the paper is described the experimental
connected to Arduino TX pin and TX pin must be work analysis of the projected car alarm system using
connected to RX pin, very important to know. The way the ATMega328 microcontroller, GPS and GSM.
of connecting Arduino Uno with other mentioned System testing will begin from the moment when the
electrical parts is shown in the Table 2. car owner starts the projected alarm system (suits
 Edin Mujčić

moment when the car owner leaves the car). After the security system, i.e. near the Faculty of Technical
start, the projected alarm system is not active for some Engineering Bihac, B&H.
time (60 seconds). This time is left due to accidental
activation of the alarm when leaving the car. After 60
seconds, the projected car alarm system becomes active.
Due to reduced energy consumption, the ATMega328
microcontroller goes into sleep mode. In case of
unauthorized entry into the car, the motion sensor is
activated and the ATMega328microcontroller returns to
normal operating mode. After that, the projected car
alarm system sends SMS message “Somebody is in your
car!” to the car owner. The received message from the
projected car alarm system is shown in Figure 10.a.
In the first case, the burglar does not have information
that the car owner is informed about unauthorized entry
into the car. In the second case, siren and car lights will
be activated in order to scare the burglar. If the alarm is
not deactivated by the car owner, a new SMS message
will be sent to car owner after 10 minutes. That message
contains information about current geographic location
of the car, i.e. GPS coordinates.
Sending SMS messages with GPS coordinates will be
repeated every 10 minutes as long as the car owner does
not reset the projected security system. The car owner Figure 11. Current car location and Google Map view of
has enough time to notify the police about the alienation the car location.
of the car and forward to them the GPS coordinates, i.e.
received SMS message. Received message with current It is possible to get Arduino Uno to sleep mode. Sleep
geographic location of the car is shown in Figure 10.b. mode in this project is used to reduce energy
consumption on Arduino boards. If security system is
sending SMS message, energy consumption is 1260
mWs. If security system does not send message and just
works in normal operating mode, energy consumption is
738 mWs. If security system works in sleep mode,
energy consumption is 558 mWs. Reducing the energy
consumption of 180 mWs was achieved by using sleep
mode.

5. CONCLUSION

Based on the experimental analysis we can see that the

projected system works well. In case of unauthorized
entry into the car, the alarm is activate and the SMS
message "Someone is in your car" is sent to the car
owner. If the car owner does not reset the alarm, new
SMS message with GPS coordinates of the current
geographic location of the car will be send after 10
minutes. These messages are sending as long as the car
Figure 10. a) First received SMS message b) Second owner does not reset the alarm.
received SMS message with GPS coordinates. Reducing the energy consumption of 180 mWs was
achieved by using sleep mode. Because of the use of the
The content of the SMS messages are link to Google SIM card, the user has to take care of the status of the
Maps and latitude and longitude of the current SIM card, i.e. SIM card must be active. The projected
geographic location of the car. The current geographic system, which dimensions are relatively small, can also
location shown is Figure 11 is the place of testing the be extended to different other applications that require
 Edin Mujčić

knowledge of the current geographic location (e.g. child and Applications. Lecture Notes in Networks and
safety and information about child's current location). Systems, vol 3. Springer, Cham

Mujčić E., Holić Dž. and Hodžić M. (2016). Remote

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