Indian college students design sensors to automatically open the roof of a car that falls into water

According to foreign media reports, in March this year, six members of a family in Coimbatore drowned after their car fell into a canal. Because after the car fell into the water, it was difficult to open the car door under the influence of water pressure, so the people in the car had no way to escape. In other words, opening the car door is not advisable because it will make the car sink faster. This principle also applies to the safety hammer on some high-end cars.

To overcome this problem, students from City College's engineering program designed a system that allows the roof of a car to automatically open after it falls into water. The project, completed by SSN Engineering students, consists of three main components - sensors , a microcontroller, and a roof opening mechanism. Six water pressure sensors are mounted on the periphery of the car, four at the corners and two on the sides.

B Vishal, one of the designers, explains that once the car starts to sink, the sensors send a signal to the microcontroller, activating the mechanism to open the roof. To prevent the roof from opening when it rains or when there is water on the road, they installed two load sensors above the car's suspension ring. The buoyancy level is different when the car is on the ground and in the water. Once the car starts to sink, these load sensors register the difference in buoyancy level and send a signal to the microcontroller.

Neil Ashwin Raj, another designer on the team, said, “The design can be integrated by the car companies at the time of manufacturing or it can be fitted on existing cars with necessary modifications at a cost of Rs 15,000.” He added, “The modifications will not affect the looks or aerodynamics of the car.”

The designers say the sensors are robust enough to survive a car falling headfirst into water. The center of gravity of a car is at the front, so it will remain vertical even if it falls headfirst into water. The designers simulated the system and recently successfully installed the system on a Maruti 800 for real-time evaluation.