Worried about your child? Track this

Bangalore: Be it a strike or violence in some parts of the city, anxious parents need not get hyper. They can now not only track their children but also warn them if they are in a danger zone.

The child tracking device developed by the Centre of Electronics, Design and Technology (CEDT) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) in Bangalore is going to be the size of a sleek mobile and can be fitted into the child's shoe, belt or worn like a wristwatch, Dr Pavan Nuggehalli and T V Prabhakar, of CEDT, who led the project, said.

Since there is no voice communication, the device can be easily allowed in schools, Prabhakar added.

The child carrying the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) device in the form of activated mobile phone can be easily tracked by the parent. Information from this device is periodically transferred to the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) linked to a central server.

"Parents sitting at home, can see on the website, the map of the locality in which the child is expected to move around and mark the areas on the map which, according to them are danger areas as far as the child is concerned. It could even be pubs or discotheques," Prabhakar said.

"In our implementation of the prototype, every five minutes, position information was updated," Nuggehalli said.

However, for the GPS technology to work, there needs to be a line of sight path between the GPS receiver and the GPS satellites, which is often not possible in the indoor environment, Nuggehalli added.

PAGE_BREAK

For this purpose, an improved technology, AGPS (assisted GPS) is used in collaboration with cellular networks, Nuggehalli said.

When the child enters the danger zone, the device sends an SMS message to the parent even as the child gets a warning buzzer. There is also a panic button for the child to trigger in case of an emergency, he added.

One can either rely on cellular service provider to support the AGPS functionality or can have the stand-alone AGPS base station serving the same function. "We went for the stand alone option", Nuggehalli said.

"There are similar products in the world. However, a device like this has been prototyped for the first time in India", he added.

Before deciding on the technical specifications of the product, an extensive market survey was undertaken and it was found "products available on similar lines were pricey and did not use the AGPS)", Nuggehalli said.

Although the prototype costed CEDT around Rs 20,000, the actual product will not be over Rs 5,000, the cost of a mobile phone, Nuggehalli said.

The device sponsored by Wipro Technologies (Aerospace, Defence and Satellite Navigation Group) was actually devised by two students of CEDT, Shanawas and Gaurav Kasbekar under the guidance of Nuggehalli and Prabhakar.