Design of a real-time autonomous in-cabin sensory system to detect passenger anomaly

The physical discomfort state of passengers in moving public transportation system is often ignored. It is generally assumed to be a safe ride for transport seekers. However, in recent years, attacks to the passengers have increased especially in metropolitan towns, hence an immediate technology intervention is required in this field which is critically ignored so far. The real-time passenger anomaly detection inside the moving vehicle is an apt approach leading towards a safe ride. The detection of a passenger discomfort state needs further integration and synchronization with the built-in modern invigilance system that reports to the emergency response team to rescue the fellow passenger. An automated in-seat real-time system to detect the physical discomfort state of the passengers in moving vehicles is designed and developed. The design involves an array of pressure-sensitive conductive (PSC) sensors embedded in the cushion of the seat, and backrest. The sensors are placed optimally on 15 different positions of the backrest and seat cushions. The in-seat sensory module is easily interfaced with the prototype invigilance reporting system via wireless communication technique to demonstrate the functionality of the complete system. The in-seat sensory design was experimentally tested under the stationary and moving vehicle for several subjects with more than 99% accuracy in reporting physically attacked state successfully. Also, the proposed system mitigates false detection completely, with the low cost and scalable in-seat sensory design. The in-seat pressure-sensitive sensory design-based passenger state identification method is feasible, tamper-less, and easy to install in the current public vehicles.