School students develop Smart Traffic Light

Students at Shiv Nadar School developed an ‘Intelligent Traffic Light’ system which they say may not only help reduce commute time but also lower air pollution.

It is the first system meant to work on Indian roads and will function accurately keeping in mind the traffic situation in the country. Using a simple camera and a microcontroller, a prototype has been developed and tested in live traffic conditions. It has also been approved for a longer trial by the local authorities. This system uses a camera to sense the changing traffic patterns around by capturing an image.

The captured image is then sent to a microprocessor, which uses image processing and edge detection algorithms to detect edged black and white pixels.

By various real-time observations and analysis under different traffic density scenarios, the students determined the amount of maximum and minimum time required for different traffic densities to clear.

The innovation is compatible with the existing traffic lights, thus cutting down the costs and time required for implementation. The system will cost only Rs 20,000 as compared to Rs eight lakh spent on other systems.