Development of vehicle tracking system using GPS and GSM modem

The ability to track vehicles is useful in many applications including security of personal vehicles, public transportation systems, fleet management and others. Furthermore, the number of vehicles on the road globally is also expected to increase rapidly. Therefore, the development of vehicle tracking system using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) modem is undertaken with the aim of enabling users to locate their vehicles with ease and in a convenient manner. The system will provide users with the capability to track vehicle remotely through the mobile network. This paper presents the development of the vehicle tracking system's hardware prototype. Specifically, the system will utilize GPS to obtain a vehicle's coordinate and transmit it using GSM modem to the user's phone through the mobile network. The main hardware components of the system are u-blox NEO-6Q GPS receiver module, u-blox LEON-G100 GSM module and Arduino Uno microcontroller. The developed vehicle tracking system demonstrates the feasibility of near real-time tracking of vehicles and improved customizability, global operability and cost when compared to existing solutions.