International Journal of Review in Electronics & Communication Engineering (IJRECE)

Volume 1 - Issue 4 October 2013

Vehicle Accident Prevention System Embedded with

Alcohol Detector
M.H Mohamad, Mohd Amin Bin Hasanuddin, Mohd Hafizzie Bin Ramli
Faculty of Electronic and Computer Engineering
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka
Hang Tuah Jaya, 76100 Durian Tunggal
Melaka, Malaysia
mashaslinda@utem.edu.my, amin_hasanuddin@yahoo.com, misterhafizzie@gmail.com

Abstract The purpose of this project is to develop

vehicle accident prevention by method of alcohol detector
in an effort to reduce traffic accident cases based on
driving under the influence alcohol. This project is
developed by integrated the alcohol sensor with the
microcontroller. The alcohol sensor used in this project is
MQ-3 which to detect the present of alcohol content in
human breath. An ignition system which will produce
spark plugs is build up as a prototype to act like the
ignition starter over the vehicles engine. The ignition
system will operate based on the level of blood alcohol
content (BAC) from human breaths detected by alcohol
sensor.
Keywords: Component; Alcohol Sensor; Ignition
System; Blood Alcohol Ccontent
I.

IINTRODUCTION

The factor of vehicle compactness on the road increased

dramatically because of the population in Malaysia has been
increasing rapidly years by years. Moreover the improvement
in Malaysian living standard has contributed to the increasing
number of vehicle on the road. These factors are leading to a
lot of road accidents. Some of the cases of these road
accidents may happen when there are drunken driver who
driving in dangerous condition. At present the death cases
due to the drunken driver cause of themselves have increased
radically. Based on research reports from Malaysian Institute
of Road Safety Research (MIROS) published on February
2012 related cases of driving under the influence of drugs or
alcohol (DUI), 16.7% were tested positive for alcohol at
Kuala Lumpur and 112 recorded as a number of deaths.
Positive in alcohol depends on the quantity of alcohol in the
blood after the driver drunk and it is measured in mg of
alcohol per 100ml of blood, or mg/l [1].
Alcohol in the blood or blood alcohol content (BAC) is
usually expressed as a percentage of alcohol in the blood.
High BAC of the drunken driver will affect their behavior
likes unconsciousness, emotional swings and anger or
sadness. The person with BAC 0.2mg/l and above will have
impaired judgment, coordination and sensory perception,
slow time reaction, fall performance in intellectual test and
weakened eyesight [2]. These prove that the drunken driver

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with certain BAC level is not safe to drive alone on the road
as they will lose their rationalism.
Therefore there is a need to prevent the drunken driver to
drive alone in unconsciousness on the road. The vehicle
accident prevention system can be one of the solutions to
avoid drunken driver to drive as it could detected the BAC
through human breaths using alcohol sensor. This system will
evolve alarm as warning and the driver unable to start the car
engines if the alcohol sensor detected certain value of BAC.
II.

EXPERIMENTAL SECTION

The construction of this system consists of two parts

which is hardware development and software development.
Hardware development involved the designing the circuit of
the project and printed circuit board (PCB) works. While the
software developments are focused on simulating the circuit
before test to the real component and also designing coding
to be embedded in the hardware.
A. Hardware development
Vehicle accident prevention system includes several parts
as follow: PIC 16F876A, alcohol sensor circuit, alarm
system, LCD display and ignition system. The block diagram
of this system is shown in Figure 1. PIC 16F876A is the heart
of the system which connect both input and output of the
system. PIC 16F876A required input voltage 7.5V and then
regulated to 5V in PIC as a voltage supply to the other
circuits.

Figure 1: Block diagram of the system

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Alcohol sensor
The alcohol sensor circuit will detect the alcohol depends
on human breath and the signal will send data to PIC
16F876A as a controller to other circuits. The result of
human breath contains alcohol that has detected from alcohol
sensor circuit will display on the LCD 16x2 display.
The alcohol sensor MQ-3 is selected in this system due to
its sensitivity in detection the small value of BAC. This
sensor is manufactured by Hanwei Electronic Co. Ltd has
high sensitivity to alcohol and small sensitivity to benzene
[3]. The sensor able to detect BAC with different
concentration and classified the range of BAC detected into a
few level. Figure 2 shows the overview of alcohol sensor
MQ-3.

Figure 2: Overview of MQ-3 in mm

Ignition system
The main purpose of the ignition system circuit is to
produce a spark at spark plugs so it can enable or disable
vehicles engine. Basically ignition system requires a supply,
ignition switch and ignition coil. The minimum supply
voltage is 12V alternating current (AC). The AC power
supply helps the ignition coil to produce high voltages to the
pulse of spark plugs.
In vehicle accident prevention system, the ignition system
is connected with the high voltage inverter to enable or
disable the engines ignition starter. The relay on this circuit
is normally closed and will set to normally open when the
alcohol sensor detected the drunkenness level. As a result
of this condition the spark plug could not produce the spark
or in the real condition hence the cars engine could not start.
LCD display and Alarm system
LCD display in this system will act as an indicator to the
driver about the level of drunkenness. The LCD will display
three condition based on BAC sensed by alcohol sensor. The
conditions are intoxication, slightly drunk and
drunkenness level. Alarm in this system is function to alert
the driver and other people in vicinity about the condition of
the BAC level detected by alcohol sensor.

show the basic for the software development requirement for

this project.

Figure 3: Software Development

PIC C Compiler allowed user to create the desired
instruction using C language. This software also will produce
hexadecimal data to be embedded in PIC 16F876A. While
PIC kit 2 Programmer is used to load dedicated program into
PIC 16F876A.
The flow chart of the system is shown in Figure 4. The
value of the output voltage is change based on the
concentration of the alcohol detected. PIC 16F876A control
the output system based on the changing voltage from the
alcohol sensor. The voltage output is equivalent to the BAC
level detected in ppm. The BAC level is categorized into
three level which are intoxication (130 ppm to 260 ppm) ,
slightly drunk (261 ppm to 390 ppm) and drunkenness (390
ppm to 650 ppm) [4].
The PIC16F876A is responding based on 3 conditions
of voltage output which is from range 4.2V to 4.42V, 4.43 V
to 4.62V and value above 4.62V which are corresponding to
BAC level range 130 ppm to 260 ppm, 261 ppm to 390 ppm
and greater than 390 ppm respectively.

Start

Alcohol sensor sense

BAC on human breath

Voltage:
4.2V- 4.42V

Yes

No alarm sound
Ignition system : activated

No
Voltage:
4.43V 4.62V
No
Voltage:
Greater than
4.62V

Yes

Alarm sound: ON
Ignition system : activated

No

Yes

B. Software development
Software development as a general is to develop
embedded software required to be integrated and controlled
with the hardware development. Software development also
means an activity on the computer programming required to
construct a circuit as a simulation before doing a fabrication
to construct a real physical hardware development. Figure 3

Alarm sound: ON
Ignition system :
deactivated
Reset
End

Figure 4: Flow chart of the system

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III.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Figure 5 shows the prototype of the Vehicle Accident

Prevention System. The system begins to operate when the
alcohol sensor detected BAC level from the driver. Then it
will send the signal to PIC 16F876A for further process which
will involve the LCD display, alarm and ignition system.

Figure 6 show the corresponding value of BAC in ppm

to the alcohol sensor output voltage. The output voltages for
the MQ-3 alcohol sensor circuit are 4.2V to 4.42V, 4.43V to
4.62V and 4.62V to 4.93V.

Figure 6: Response of ppm via alcohol sensor output

voltages values
IV.

Figure 5: Prototype overview

BAC level detected by alcohol sensor is based on gas or
alcohol concentration in ppm (parts per million). This system
is tested by Whisky alcoholic drinks as the input to the
experiment. The alcohol sensor can sense an alcohol from
human breath from 130 ppm until 650 ppm. The result is
categorized into three conditions of the driver with different
value of BAC level which are intoxication, slightly drunk and
drunkenness. Table 1 shows the achieved result.
Table 1: Result achieved in different level of drunkeness in ppm

Output
LCD
display
Buzzer
Ignition
system

Level of drunkenness
130 ppm-260
261 ppm391 ppm-650
ppm
390 ppm
ppm
intoxication
slightly
drunkenness
drunk
Off
On
On
enable
enable
disable

CONCLUSIONS

An efficient system of vehicle accident prevention system

embedded by alcohol detector has been proposed. It consist
of PIC 16F876A as the main controller, alcohol sensor as the
input and three output such as ignition system, LCD display
and alarm system. This system capable to alert the driver
about the level of drunkenness by indicates the condition on
LCD display. It also produce an alarm from buzzer to make
the driver aware their own condition and to vigilant other
people in surrounding area. The most safety element
provided by this system is the driver in high level of
drunkenness is not allowed to drive a car as the ignition
system will be deactivated. Ultimately, this system help to
prevent the driver to drive in risky situation and will avoid
accident occur on the road.
V.

ACKNOWLEDGEMNET

The first author wishes to acknowledge the Universiti

Teknikal Malaysia Melaka for giving her financial support
through short term grant, PJP/2011/FKEKK (36B)/S00934.
REFRENCES

For first condition, LCD will display intoxication

when the alcohol sensor detected BAC level from 130 ppm to
260 ppm. This condition showed that the driver is free from
alcohol and there is no alarm sound from the buzzer is
activated. While the ignition system is enable means the
driver is conscious and can drive the vehicle on the road
safely.
The next condition is slightly drunk with 261 ppm to 390
ppm drunkenness level. This means the driver has drunk with
a little amount of alcohol, but need to be assisted during the
driving on the road. The buzzer is activated to alert the driver
and the people in vicinity that the driver is slightly drunk. In
the last condition, the ignition system is deactivated as the
level of BAC is too high. The driver is totally unconscious
and not safe for driving.

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[1] Mohamed, N., Batcha, W. A., Abdullah, N. K., Yusoff, M. F.

M., Rahim, S. A. S. M., & Mahmood, M. S, Alcohol and
Drug Use Among Fatally Injured Drivers in Urban Area of
Kuala Lumpur (No. MRR 02/2012) , 2012.
[2] Killoran, A., Canning, U., Doyle, N., & Sheppard, L, Review
of effectiveness of laws limiting blood alcohol concentration
levels to reduce alcohol-related road injuries and deaths Final
Report. London: Centre for Public Health Excellence (NICE),
2010.
[3] Adamson, S., & Enright, S. Alcohol Gas Detector
Breathalyzer.
[4] Mitsubayashi, Kohji, et al. "Biochemical gas-sensor (biosniffer) for breath analysis after drinking." SICE 2004 Annual
Conference. Vol. 1. IEEE, 2004.

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