ISSN (Print) : 2278-8948, Volume-2, Issue-3, 2013 102 RFID and GPS based Automatic Lane Clearance System for Ambulance Rashmi Hegde, Rohith R. Sali & M. S. Indira Sir MVIT E-mail : raregem24@gmail.com, rohi265@gmail.com Abstract - The exponential growth of the metropolitan cities of the country has generated and magnified urban sprawl into problematic proportions. Lack of efficient traffic control and management has many a times lead to loss of lives due to ambulances getting stuck in traffic jams. To overcome this problem, we propose a RFID and GPS based Automatic Lane Clearance System for Ambulance. The focus of this paper is to reduce the delay in arrival of the ambulance to the hospital by automatically clearing the lane in which ambulance is travelling, before it reaches the traffic signal. This can be achieved by turning the traffic signal, in the path of the ambulance, to green when the ambulance is at a certain distance from the traffic junction. The use of RFID distinguishes between the emergency and non-emergency cases, thus preventing unnecessary traffic congestion. The communication between the ambulance and the traffic signal post is done through transceivers and GPS. The system is fully automated and thus, requires no human intervention at the traffic junctions. Index Terms— Ambulance, GPS, RFID, Traffic signal, Transceiver I. INTRODUCTION Bangalore has grown exponentially in the past two decades. Improvement in the quality of life along with substandard public transportation has resulted in spiralling growth of private automobiles. The resultant offshoot of such a high automobile growth is that now Bangalore is one of the most accident-prone cities in India [1] .Moreover, the ambulances often get stuck at the traffic signals where all other vehicles try to squeeze in to all the available space so as to move ahead as soon as the signal turns green. Unlike western countries, Indian cities cannot think of having separate lanes for emergency purpose due to lack of road planning and infrastructure. With the lives of the patients depending on the speedy arrival of the ambulances to hospital, an alternative solution to the above problem is the need of the hour. The problem of ambulance getting stuck in a traffic jam can be addressed by ensuring that the lane in which the ambulance is travelling is cleared. That is, the arrival of the ambulance is to be communicated to the nearest traffic signal, so that it can turn the light to green and hence clear the traffic. However, all the ambulances will not be carrying emergency cases. Hence, the traffic clearing system, if done for all the ambulances, will certainly pose a traffic problem. To overcome this difficulty, we propose to make a system combining RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and GPS. II. BACKGROUND The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space- based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. (2) A GPS receiver’s job is to locate four or more of these satellites, figure out the distance to each, and use this information to deduce its own location. The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) usually refers a whole system, which usually contains three main parts: The RFID tag, RFID Reader, and the Application. RFID tag refers to small electronic devices that consist of a small chip and an antenna. The chip typically is capable of carrying some kind of information depending on applications. The RFID readers, also called interrogators, are used to recognize the presence of nearby RFID tags. The Table (i) shows the read range for different frequencies of passive RFID. (3) K.Athavan et al have proposed an ambulance rescue system using GSM and GPS [4] . Fang-Yie et al suggested a traffic control scheme where the transportation authority and the ambulance communicate using encrypted messages [5] . III. RFID AND GPS BASED AUTOMATIC LANE CLEARANCE SYSTEM FOR AMBULANCE: The proposed system consists of two units. Namely: 1. Ambulance Unit 2. Junction Unit