Baandhav: Smart Mobile Application for the Safety of Women and Elderly Population

The subject of women's security is one of major concern areas in India and around the world. This is apparent from the recent incidents which have been reported in media, where a criminal attempt has been made to denigrate women's social dignity. Although there has been many suggestions to improve upon the safety of women such as enforcing stricter laws, 24x7 helpline etc. The use of technology presents a major stepping stone.  In addition to women, elderly population represents another set of population segment requiring the use of technology to provide safe monitoring. Injuries due to falls are among the leading causes of hospitalization in elderly people, often resulting in a rapid decline in functionality and death. Constant monitoring of individuals at risk for falls is one of the practical way that mobile devices could be used to improve persons’ health. Although there are numerous applications in the market catering to safety of either population, none of them cater to both population needs. The paper represents an alert system for fall detection as well as scream detection using common commercially available electronic devices to detect both the fall or scream and alert concerned people. The proposed system provides a reliable and cost effective solution to fall detection and scream detection. The Android platform is chosen for writing this application as it has biggest market presence in the world i.e. close to 80% of mobile world market and also its an open source, having very good developer community.