Microsoft Introduces HAMS For Road Safety

HAMS or Harnessing Auto Mobiles for Safety will lessen road mishaps by reducing human errors and subjectivity while approving driving licenses.

FREMONT, CA: Road safety is a major public issue in countries like India, and according to a report, approximately 1.35 million people are facing death each year in road accidents. Microsoft has announced Harnessing Auto Mobiles for Safety (HAMS) project to ensure driver’s safety.

The Microsoft Research AI project Harnessing Auto Mobiles for Safety (HAMS) is currently enabling the Regional Transport Office in Dehradun, Uttarakhand to use smartphone-based technology to computerize driver's license testing. A low-cost sensing device is used to construct a virtual harness for vehicles; it will monitor the state of the driver in the context of a road environment. The feedbacks on effective monitoring will promote road safety.

HAMS uses multiple sensors simultaneously to sense and detect things. There are two cameras to give a clear feedback. The front camera is facing the driver and the rear camera looking out to the front. All these advanced features provide a holistic and precise picture of how the vehicle is being driven.

Middle-income and especially low-pay nations bear a lopsided burden of road mishaps and fatalities. For example, the evaluations of street fatalities in India run from one at regular intervals to just about a quarter of a million, or 20 percent of the world's aggregate, every year. Other than the overwhelming human cost, road mishaps likewise force a noteworthy economic value. So it is nothing unexpected that the issue has stood out at the most significant levels of the government, including from Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself during a radio show in 2015.

It is believed that improving road conditions, vehicle wellbeing, and, above all, driver discipline would help support road safety. Undoubtedly, among the primary sources of street mishaps are such factors as over-speeding, drunk driving, and driver interruptions, which can all be relieved through better driver discipline.