LiveSound: IoT for hearing healthy and security

It might be tempting to think that noise isn’t a serious health issue, after all, it’s just noise. It won’t kill us … right? Well, maybe. 

According to World Health Organization (WHO), the higher the level of noise, the more harmful it turns for blood pressure, childhood grow and hormonal stress that are in our cities. But what if we take advantages of technology for solving this issue?

LiveSound is and embedded system that sense the level of zones, link them and being able to collect all the data in the internet, visualizing the level of sound of different places. The beauty of LiveSound is that this happens in realtime, and it is interconnected for seeing what is exactly happen with noise levels and take actions to avoid it. Beneficiaries?Adults, animals, children and every single living creature that is in this planet. 

The problem with noise pollution though is that it is not only a complex issue but also a highly persistent one. As a public nuisance concern, it has been steeped in the awareness of the public consciousness for millennia but has not really been taken seriously enough by policymakers who have tended to prioritise other seemingly more pressing environmental issues. And so, despite centuries of scientific endeavour along with attempts to control and mitigate noise, the problem continues to rumble on. Indeed, the rise in the ownership and use of private transport over the last century has arguably turned the rumble of noise pollution into something of a roar. Livesound has been designed to be scalable, reaching the topic of security by the recognizing of situations through the sound.

Research shows that loud sound can have a significant impact on human health, as well as doing devastating damage to ecosystems (Owen, D.). Since children to elders, and from cities to big ecosystems. Noise is bigger that it looks. 

What is clear is that noise pollution does affect a large number of people and is a significant risk to their health. Because of this, we need to think about interventions to solve this issue. LiveSound comes with this intention.

The intention of Lifesound is serve the people that lives in a noisy places, and also in dangerous places.

LiveSound is and embedded system that sense the level and shape of noise of zones, link them and being able to collect all the data in the internet, visualizing the level of sound of different places. The future of the solution is to analyze the received data generating patterns for different situations. Identifying this patterns, when the device is connected to the emergency services, we can get a quickly and accurate response. It works through a device connected to internet, working on LAN or WLAN. If a constant peak or a knew shape is identify, the government would be able to attack the problematic in a middle or short term by applying the law or social programs.

We use IoT and Data Science for monitoring the level of sound of different places of a city and try to take actions in order to avoid the noise pollution. Also the device can be scalable to security, by the data analysis it is possible discover patterns as the sound of a shoot of a gun, or a car accident. Using that patterns the authorities can act very quickly to response to te problematic.

In a part focused on the private use, it can be used for restaurants, and entertainment centers to avoid overpass the permitted levels of noise by the local regulations.

Internet of Things: We connect what our device capture with a microphone and link it to a database that allows you to see what is the level of sound in a city. 

The device is actually working in a ESP8266 module with a noise sensor connected in a local network to a server running the IBM tool Node-RED, which process the info, save it in real time in an .csv file (it can be changed into another needed format). Also, the information is displayed in a webpage, showing the peaks in real time. The goal to reach is when a know pattern associated with problems of noise pollution and security happens, display an alert.

The noise is poorly put in consideration when implementing technologies for avoiding it. LiveSound address a better way to see the level of sounds of different places for different uses. From a cinema, passing for small cities and directly being reflected in a whole ecosystem. 

The solution is mainly related with the implementation of this into the security system of the cities, as an example, in Progreso Yucatán, a city located 20 minutes from Mérida, were installed security cameras with speakers, when something illegal happened or was going to happen, a policeman speaks to the possible infractor to avoid to commit the crime, but if the person doesn't give attention or doesn´t stops the activity, the authorities are prepared before it happens. 

The usual method on the cities is that, before the crime or accident happens, there is a moment of shock and then, someone calls to the emergency services (but not always the authorities are advised about the crimes). With this implementation the people can have a quickly response, reducing the time of waiting and possibly, saving a life.

With the noise pollution problem, if a peak in the measure system exceeds the allowed limit, during a contine period of time, the authorities can act and apply the corresponding actions.

At the moment, the solution as is in development process is not serving to the people, but the expectaves is that in one year, reaching the financial and contract goals it can start in a pilot test, serving to approximately 20,000 people. But, in 5 years we are thinking about serve at least 1,000,000 people, operating at certain points at downtown of cities in México.

We are working to have a completely functional prototype in maximum 1 year, to start the accreditations and permissions of the government to start a pilot test in a block of the Merida´s Downtown which is high polluted by noise.

The expectative of this solution is in 5 years be completely operative on the most conflictive points of different cities of México and related with the security network of the cities, specially on Downtowns where there are a high fluct of people.

As al the projects, actually we have to reach enough money to develop a more sophisticated and accurate prototype. That is the first barrier that we need to overcome it. 

In the next 5 years, we need to discuss about local regulations and the possibility that a government agrees to work with us to include our software and hardware into their security system, that is a delicate topic if we are  talking about a device connected to internet, we need to reach a high level of cybersecurity.

By working with communities and winning this challenge.

Actually the research team is conformed by three people, at the beginning it was conformed by 6 people who started the research and first steps for the prototyping process one year ago. The team has been reduced to the actual number of people by the priorities, projects and school requests of their schools. Bryan Ruiz, Carlos Ortegón and Jorge Flores decided to retake the project by the announcement of SOLVE.

We are studying different majors related with the technology in universities that have environmental and social programs as the BIS model. Our universities are strongly related with local and national governments. As the governments are investing resources to the researching of solutions of the everyday, they are expecting us to reach that goals, offering opportunities to convert local projects into national and international projects,  by the creation of international programs as the Yucatán Initiative. Going more , inside the team, we have a matching team based on the complement of different skills as computational problem's solution, analysis of data, designing of embedded systems, communication and marketing. 

Our background and experiences started on the hackaton organized by Hacksureste, when in 24 hours we started and presented the first phase of the project, that included a functional prototype and a business model. 

Livesound has the partnership of social communities in the Merida´s area, communities that are based on the development of software and hardware with an international view, but attending the local necessities. The communities are the following:

• Hacksureste
• Asociación Juvenil de Ciencia Yucatán
• Data Mérida

We are looking to provide to the population the security that they will have a quickly response to a different problematics. We want to work with governments and private commerces as restaurants and places that generate noise. To the government it is going to provide an accuracy and a confidence to the population, and with the private commerces, it is going to avoid wasting money in fines by overpassing permitted levels of sound. We are going to provide the hardware and the software in a package, offering mantainment to keep the devices working. 

First of all, we are looking for investors to develop a more sophisticated device, at the moment, as this project have been worked in free time, to start a stage of high performance level, we want to sell a participation into the project.

When we thought about the idea of improving the life quality of our cities, we know that it was no going to be a easy way to reach our goals that go through the common goals of our society.

One of the principal obstacles that an idea needs to go into reality in our age is the economic aspect. We think that a lot of ideas that could change our life quality are not out working in our societies, because the teams doesn´t get the 2 aspects needed, the economic and the communicative. 

If you have a great idea and you are confident that could contribute to the world, to reach the investment, you need to make that the people knows about you and generate a noise that make the companies interest on you.

Solve offers us an opportunity to communicate our idea to the companies and the society, giving us that 2 aspects that we need to cover and the opportunity to improve the live of our people

Specially we would like to work with governments, as first step we want to work with them to implement our system.

Intel is a hardware/software company that can give us an opportunity to improve and make more reliable our project.

Google, as a company that supports big data project, we think it is an opportunity to match them and go deeper into artificial intelligence and machine learning.

As part of the scalable proyect of data analysis, to make an automatization that recognizes certain patterns in the graph of the taken sound, we need to implement an algorithm of AI. At the moment it is not already in use or in development in our platform, but we are planing of develop it.

If we want to use an algorithm of AI and offer it specially to the government, it is needed to reach a high accuracy level, because we are not playing with the possibility of increase life quality or save a life.

One of the highest applications of Livesound is that, working with an AI, we are wanting to reach a sound recognition with the ability of recognize the sound of a shoot, creating an immediate alert to the emergency services. Analyzing the data we can locate conflictive zones with this problematic. Having this information, the authorities can apply a higher effort to prevent and fight this problematic in that specific areas. 

The most essential thing about the IOT, which is the platform that we are using, is the data. In the actuality we have big problems with how ethically is the data used. Developing and algorithm of AI that process data and is connected to a governamental internal server requires also knowledge about cybersecurity.  Winning this challenge, will give us an opportunity to open a parallel research about cybersecurity.