A Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE 5.0) based wearable system designed to help parents locate and guide their children in crowded environments such as festivals, markets, and public gatherings — where GPS fails.
Child separation and abduction risks increase significantly in crowded public spaces. Existing GPS-based trackers suffer from poor indoor accuracy, high power consumption, and network dependency.
Guardian Tracker uses BLE 5.0 proximity and directional tracking with intuitive visual and haptic feedback to enable fast parent–child reunification without GPS.
The system consists of:
- 👶 Child Device
- 👨👩👧 Parent Device
Both communicate using BLE 5.0 and provide real-time distance and direction cues.
- BLE 5.0 communication (ESP32)
- 🔊 Buzzer for public alert when out of range
- 🔘 Distress button
- 💡 8 directional LEDs to guide toward parent
- 🌈 RGB LED for proximity indication
- BLE 5.0 scanner
- 💡 8 directional LEDs to locate child
- 🌈 RGB LED for distance trend
- 📳 Vibration alerts for multiple distance thresholds
- 📱 Mobile app (prototype)
- Direction is inferred using RSSI-based comparison
- Multiple RSSI samples are taken and filtered
- Strongest RSSI direction lights the corresponding LED
- Calibrated over time to reduce noise in crowded environments
This approach works indoors and outdoors without GPS.
- ESP32 (BLE 5.0)
- RSSI-based proximity & direction estimation
- Embedded C firmware
- Mobile app (prototype)
- LED + buzzer + vibration feedback
- Real-world crowded environment testing
- RSSI calibration over multiple days
- Emergency scenario simulation
- Signal interference handling
- Works indoors & crowded spaces
- Very low power
- No mobile network dependency
- Instant visual & haptic guidance
- Cost-effective and scalable
- Full project report available in
docs/
Developed as part of 22ES390 – Design Thinking
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai
(Dec 2024)
- BLE 5.1 Angle of Arrival (AoA)
- Smaller wearable PCB
- Battery optimization
- Law enforcement alert integration
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