Surya Rakshak
alert system
The problem Surya Rakshak solves
In regions like India, outdoor workers—such as traffic police, farmers, and construction laborers—spend grueling hours under the sun. Often, they do not realize the level of heat stress or UV radiation their bodies are absorbing until it is too late, leading to dehydration, heatstroke, or chronic skin damage.
Surya Rakshak solves this by acting as a proactive safety companion:
Real-Time Monitoring: It automates the tracking of body temperature and UV intensity, tasks that are impossible for a human to measure manually while working.
Preventative Alerts: Instead of waiting for symptoms like dizziness to occur, the system sends an immediate smartphone alert ("High UV exposure found! Please get some shade").
Improved Occupational Safety: It makes a dangerous work environment safer by providing data-driven insights, ensuring workers take breaks and hydrate exactly when their physiological limits are being reached.
Data-Driven Awareness: Through "Data Visualization," workers and supervisors can analyze exposure trends over time to adjust shift schedules during peak heat hours.
Challenges we ran into
Building a wearable safety system that operates in harsh outdoor environments presented several technical hurdles:
Hardware Accuracy & Environmental Interference
One of the biggest "showstoppers" was the reliability of the ML8511 UV sensor and DHT11 temperature sensor. High ambient heat and dust particles frequently caused erratic readings or "noise" in the data.
The Fix: I implemented software-based calibration to filter out outliers and spent time ensuring the sensors were housed in a way that protected them from the elements without obstructing their ability to sample the air and light.
Power Management and Connectivity
The system relies on an ESP8266 Wi-Fi module, which is power-hungry. In field use, keeping the wearable powered while maintaining a constant internet connection for data transmission was a major challenge.
The Fix: To mitigate this, I optimized the data transmission intervals so the module isn't constantly transmitting, which saves battery. I also identified solar-powered charging as a critical upcoming improvement to make the device fully sustainable for day-long outdoor use.
Network Reliability
Outdoor work sites often have "dead zones" or weak signals, causing alert notifications to be delayed or blocked.
The Fix: I focused on making the local alert mechanism (the "Alert Mechanism" step) as robust as possible, ensuring that the primary logic for safety remains the priority even when the cloud sync is lagging.
Tracks Applied (1)
Creative Use of Kiro
AWS
Technologies used