This project was a collaborative effort of the engineering and design disciplines at IIITDM Jabalpur. The problem statement we picked was to build a geriatric safety device to protect or prevent them from falling. The project operated in two phases, the ideation phase and the fabrication phase. In the ideation phase, my team of 7 including me focused on user research and identifying the root cause of the problem, based on which we came up with many solutions that aimed to solve various parts of the problem.

The result of this process was a smart walker that detected fall using an accelerometer and gyroscope sensor module and altered a caregiver via mail and SMS. I took on the task of designing the circuit and programming the microprocessor module, I also took on the task of implementing APIs to help our flutter app communicate with the system. The system features:

• NodeMCU ESP8266 equipped with a WiFi module to allow connecting to the internet.
• The system operates in two modes, sensing and configuration mode, indicated by the blue LED on the module and toggleable by the flash button on the module.
• The module stores WiFi credentials and emergency contact data onto the EEPROM, on startup the module checks for a WiFi with matching credentials and tries to connect, if it can connect, it goes into sensing mode, else it goes into configuration mode.
• Sensing mode: The NodeMCU once connected to a WiFi does the following :
  1. Reads data from the MPU6050 gyroscope and accelerometer module and passes it through a fall detection algorithm that decides whether there has been a fall, 
  2. If yes it reads its EEPROM for emergency contact details and retrieves mail and SMS information.
  3. Next, it calls a webhook hosted on IFTTT and triggers a mail and an SMS alert to the retrieved contact details.
• Configuration mode: The NodeMCU module starts a WiFi hotspot that you can connect to using our flutter application, it then allows you to change WiFi credentials and emergency contact information stored on the EEPROM. The system facilitates this by starting an HTTP server that is accessible via this hotspot and allows communication via APIs to modify this data.
• The system is also equipped with a 3600mAH battery and a TP4056 charge controller module to allow charging the battery and running the system without any external supply and an LM1117 IC to regulate voltage.
• A 3D-printed case to house all the components.