Smart Bicycles ( Old One - 2017 work )

Note - Did this as a proposal for a company that didn't go ahead, so thought of sharing it now as a use case of IoT. Post our proposal, there was a wave of connected cycle startups ( not that I am saying because of our - means my startup proposal, but a lot of work was done with connected cycle and renting platform ). Now when I look back at it, it was a good-to-have thing but might have worked for cycling enthusiasts and those with costly bicycles. 

Last-mile connectivity is still a problem and a lot of startups are working on it and are working on it. Pedl ( Zoom Car ) was one of the products pretty famous at that time ( they shut down the operation in 2018 ). Most of these startups are E-Bicycle startups like Yulu Or Zypp Electric ( not an e-scooter company but an Electric vehicle as a service company ). There are many other startups. But with connected bicycles, it would have added to the health economy of our country also ( these days, no one wants to walk - one can say that we don't have good roads to walk on and specifically these startups - e-bikes - are there everywhere on the pathways also ). But assume government policies like that in every major startup hub - only cycles allowed or public transport, then we are enforcing a good habit ( focus on the word enforcing and good ). Probably, I will write in detail about the end-mile connectivity startups in my next blog. Till then enjoy a small piece on one of the IoT implementations. 

Connected Cycles - Another use case of IoT

In this busy schedule of 8 am to 5 pm, one thing that people are most worried about is health. With the kind of diet, pressure in the office, and daily busy routine, it's a bit difficult to manage health properly. Where it's a bit more physical to run daily, people prefer cycling, swimming, or some physical gaming activity. When we talk about cycling, most of us from childhood use that as a mode of commuting from our home to school or even to our colleges.

In this new era of technology, with the available resources people are interested to see how they are doing in every particular field how much they are spending on daily household groceries, how many hours they are spending while commuting, or how their car is performing. Similarly, people who do cycling as a hobby would like to see how much effort they are putting in while cycling, how much energy they are burning, and what the last route they took, in fact, they would like to share the same with their fellow cyclist just to see the comparison in the performance.

Proposed Device 

Mountable device A battery / Solar powered power device with AES encryption, built-in GPRS / Bluetooth connectivity for uplink connectivity, an automated lock, and the following sensors. 

1. Accelerometer 
2. GPS 
3. Gyroscope.

Hardware features would have been 

1. Low-power device with battery backup and Solar charging 
2. Uplink - 4G or Bluetooth-based (Bluetooth-based wouldn't have worked for an anti-theft feature or tracking feature ). 
3. A robust - IP67 kind of enclosure 

Data collected by the device from all these sensors is pushed to the connected cycle platform in real time using GPRS or using Bluetooth to the user's mobile phone and from there to the central cloud using 4G/5G (whenever there is activity in the sensor). Once data is received on the server, multiple types of analytics can run on top of the data collected like the amount of calories burnt, performance of the cycle, requirement of service, and usage. The same data is also made available over the Android application for the user along with other relevant data.

Old design - Didn't think of the lock system. 

New designs by startups working in smart bicycle lock space - like ilockit ( image credit to ilockit team )

One question can be why not simply use a mobile phone application to monitor how much distance I have traveled or how many calories I have burned. The answer is simple, yes you can, but with a device fitted to cycle, you can have a lock also and an anti-theft feature. 

Connected bicycle platform 

A connected bicycle platform where data from the devices collected can be stored, analyzed, and displayed. The same platform also exposes REST API following API first methodology (it gives us leverage to develop other applications as well as distribute the data to the users to develop their own dashboard - more user engagement).

Features 

1. User IoT sensor data display - Display of data pushed by the application like real-time position (accurate position with the help of Assisted GPS), average speed, distance traveled, any incident of fall, battery consumption, usage, calories burnt, and requirement of bike servicing. 
2. Cyclist community - Organise and share the cycling event in the community, invite other users, share the experience, share moments, and rent / Exchange cycles. Share real-time weather data, organize events, and meetups, invite non-cyclists to join the network, and share your thoughts. 
3. Cycle insurance, service  Track real-time usage of the cycle, real-time location, prevent theft, and crash alerts, see nearby service centers in the city, arrange pick-up for service, see the latest offers, and buy insurance for your cycle.

NCR Air Pollution - Claming diwali not a contributor to NCR Air pollution problem would be wrong

NCR Air Pollution 

It would really be a stupid point if we claim that Diwali don't contribute to the pollution fiasco and our failure to control pollution. It would be more like giving a excuse of your stupidity by comparing it to the others, but i would also like to emphasis on the selective biasing of the people towards Diwali and all the fuzz around social media. Here is an article which talks about the major reasons contributing to the air pollution  and yes pollution due to fire crackers contribute significantly to this but air pollution start increase post diwali from October 25th  because of change in weather patters. 

People now days are more aware of the fact that air around them is polluted. You can verify this by looking at the increase in the sales number of Indoor Air purifier ( 18-25% increase in sales in winter season ) and that is the reason, people have moved away from burning crackers . Here is article which talk about post-diwali  AQI of 2018 and 2019 which was 642 in 2018 and 368 in 2019. Though this 2 year AQI don't define what will happen next year, but i think people know that this pollution is going to impact their children a lot and they don't want a bad future for their children's. What is needed is a reform on micro-level making people understand the impact of air pollution just like GOI has done for open defecation.

Diwali happened to be a festival during the start of winter season where temperature start decreasing, moisture content start increase and wind speed near the surface of the air decrease ( obvious as there is very little difference between the surface temperature and high altitude temperature ). We have observed this phenomenon in Bangalore while running a experiment. In the day time, the number of PM10 particles count ( 1 hour average - 3 minute sensing ) was lesser as compared to the night time and the reason behind this was ( as mentioned in the previously was presence of air moisture and warm air near the surface ( Bangalore is not too cold even in winters and thus there is some difference between the air near to the surface and air at 1000 meter height ) which is not the case in the NCR region.  I have done similar kind of experiment in Kanpur before Diwali and during Diwali. Below is the graph representing PM2.5 and PM10 values in outskirts of Kanpur in the month of June.

Here is the link to the trail of tweets during my experiment of Air Quality last year in the month of November. I wanted to extend this experiment by deploying more number of static air quality monitor in Kanpur just like Skymet has done now in Delhi i.e. monitoring hyper-local air quality in Delhi and doing analysis along with other factors like Temperature, Humidity and density of vehicles in the vicinity thus reaching a conclusion if peak time impact the air pollution. Here is the link to Skymet android app. This kind of experiment will help the local government to find the sources of pollution and then take measures to reduce it. I am not going to point out possible solution to this problem because i think there are people with far more knowledge and experience but i think, evey individual has to contribute their bit in the fight against the pollution. I have done my bit by saying big NO to crackers from last 3 years and i have plans to do local workshops in Kanpur to raise awareness towards  pollution.


Now coming to the reason behind writing a articles on air pollution all of sudden, one friend of mine asked a very valid question that where all this pollution goes. I have some understanding that heavy particles eventually settle down but what about other gaseous pollutants like NO2, SO2, PM1 and PM2.5? I am raising this question to all the experts out there to help me understand what happen to the produced pollution? Does it literally settle down ? We all know the hole in Ozone layer. I read a really interesting article which discussed in detail about how Particulate matter settle down indoor, but i am not sure if that stand true for outdoor.

Link to a online book for those who want to under particulate material in depth ( no i didn't went through it ).

I am contributing my bit to fight against Air pollution and would request all those who are reading this article to spread awareness about Air pollution at their level. 

Belated Happy Diwali to all.