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Session 1620

Designing an EMS Emergency Beacon

Mohammad Fotouhi, Ali Eydgahi, Matthew V. Schneider

University of Maryland Eastern Shore Princess Anne, MD 21853

Abstract

This paper presents the details of an undergraduate senior design project in our design technology course1-3. The main idea of this design is to have a keypad that could be carried on board an ambulance to communicate with the units available on houses in neighborhoods so that in an emergency situation ambulances can easily identify where the emergency call is coming from. As the ambulance is approaching the neighborhood where the emergency is taking place, the attendant could push a code that is unique to the house where assistance is needed, which would activate a beacon located in front of the house. This would greatly limit the time spent on finding the house which is ordinarily spent on trying to read numbers that are not always where they are suppose to be. In this design, each of the houses has its own unique three-digit code that can easily be changed. The data lines are the only portion of the system that is shared between the ambulance and the houses.

Introduction

This project is mainly a digital circuit with a little analog involved in the design4-5. A keypad is used in conjunction with an encoder to send a BCD signal to a home unit. If the information from the keypad matches the code of the home unit a flashing beacon will be activated. The keystone of this design lies in the 7485 chip, which is a four-bit magnitude comparator. This chip offers the features needed for this design. Sequencing and latching circuitry allow the beacon to only become active when the correct code is entered in the correct order. Another feature that is desired is that all of the systems be independent and have the ability to change the code easily. Each of the houses has its own unique three digit code that can easily be changed. The data lines are the only portion of the system that is shared between the ambulance and the houses. This is obviously necessary for data transmission. The concept of the design is illustrated in figure 1.

Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition

Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education

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Shakur, A., & Eydgahi, A. (2003, June), Designing An Ems Emergency Beacon Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--11887