It all started when we saw an ambulance struck in traffic and it took 5 mins for traffic inspector to realize it and he turned the signal green for ambulance.
Well you know what typical software developers think ” how about a system which track the emergency vehicles and control the traffic signals?”
Well in western countries we do have separate lanes for emergency vehicles like ambulance but its little tough in developing countries due to narrow roads,
So we started with this idea names “SAP freeway” which helps emergency vehicles like an ambulance to provide free way.
The initial design diagram was like this:
As you can see in the Design “SAP Freeway” has three parts.
- android application which will be used by ambulance driver to submit the Freeway request.
(You can use App inventor to know how to create easy android application in rocket speed
http://beta.appinventor.mit.edu/ But its difficult in case you want to use SUP so we used eclipse development tool for developing android application for driver)
- SAP backed algorithm to handle freeway request and turn on/off particular traffic signal status based on the distance of the ambulance and traffic signal.(Pure ABAP )
- Portal application with java connections(Jco) which read the current location of the emergency vehicle as well as the status of the traffic signals (green/red) and plot it in Google maps (2D) and Google earth.(which will be used by Traffic control room)
We prepared the video about how SAP Freeway works and submitted for Demojam Bangalore.
After few days result were out with the finalist of SAP Teched Bangalore and “SAP Freeway ” was selected.
And I was in dilemma whether to be happy or sad as I was sure as if I start preparing for Teched Demojam…I am going to spend all coming weekend in office with “SAP Freeway” and will miss all my coffee , movies , long drives and parties.
And after few fights (you can guess with whom!!) I was allowed to Spend 2 months completely in office with my lovely laptop developing/beautifying the code for SAP Freeway with my team Trinoy, Tanushree and Narin.
Initially we thought that lets show the demo in real time mounting a camera on vehicle and will keep the dummy traffic signals on the road.
But it was very difficult to wrap up that demo in 6 mins.So we came up with “SAP streetView board”
A model ( 5 feet X 7 feet ) with the predefined path from KTPO to Yashoda hospital ( as shown in the 2D map ) with real traffic signals.
With lots of engineering work we somehow manage to make a big board using thermocol sheet and wooden sticks to support it.
Now the tough part how am I gonna track the toy car which is moving on a small board As its almost impossible for GPS to help me out in such a small board.
And an Einstein in us woke up thinking about all the possible option to track it.Starting from “putting a marker on top of the toy car with camera mounted on top” to ” Measuring the rotation of the wheels of car that how much distance it moved.”
But As I always says “Every Difficult problem has easy solution, You just need to think bit different”
And the solution was proximity sensor. We kept the android phone on the ambulance and mounted few street lights on the board. So whenever an ambulance passes below the street light. It sends the GPS co-ordinates to the SAP backend using SUP (Sybase unwired platform).We prepared a predefined route and based on that we wrote an android code to send the GPS co-ordinates to SAP backend.
Everything was in place and the most awaiting day came – SAP Teched
We placed our model on the Demojam stage and we were all set to put 3 months of hard work infront of 12000 techies in 6 mins.
http://www.sapvirtualevents.com/teched/sessiondetails.aspx?sId=4143
Demo went good and it was a final countdown when winners were going to be announced and it was SAP Freeway.I would say it was the best birthday Gift to my self-holding a Teched demo jam trophy gives u and awesome experience .
It was an honor to get interviewd by SAP research manager Kowalkiewicz, Marek .
http://www.sapvirtualevents.com/teched/sessiondetails.aspx?sId=4150
