Raspberry Pi based real time tracking system

An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon or EPIRB is used to alert search and rescue services in the event of an emergency. When activated, such beacons send out a distress signal, which is monitored, and location of signal is triangulated. However, this service is mainly available for large entities like airplane and ships. Also, the EPIRB only transmits the location of the distress. The receiver of the signal has no clue about the nature and severity of the distress. In this project, using the power of Internet of things, we aim to build an Emergency Beacon that can be used by each and every individual in distress situations. The emergency beacon transmits the location of the device bearer, and the pictures of his surroundings, to one or more authorized Android devices, whenever the device bearer presses the button on the emergency beacon. The pictures of the surroundings of the emergency beacon will help the rescuer to know about the kind and severity of the distress situation, thereby aiding in better rescue. Also, the device sends periodic updates about the last known location of the device, to the server. Additionally, the authorized android device can also query the location of the device bearer at any point of time. The emergency beacon that we have built enables the device bearer to transmit a distress signal consisting of his location and photos of his surrounding conditions, to the authorized Android device in fewer than two minutes, following which the Android device bearer can send the necessary help to aid in the distress situation. The usability of the device can be further improved by investing in expensive and powerful GPS and camera modules, smaller components and better servers. Consequently, these improvements will help in reducing the size of the device, better location accuracy, higher resolution and wider-angle pictures and faster transmission of distress signals.