Students from the National Institute of Technology of Mexico (TecNM) have developed a project to create a smart shoe insole which aims to save lives amidst a surge in kidnappings and violence in the country.
The project is called Safefoot and has been in development for more than a year, with the participation of IT and Industrial Engineering students from the Gustavo A. Madero campus .
“The toe box is equipped with a force sensor that acts as a panic button, activating a security system,” stated the student Norma Itzel in an interview with Excélsior .
“We put all our compounds in the heel counter and placed the button in the front part of the shoe. Some of these compounds are a GSM card , the battery we’re going to use, and our GPS system,” the student explained.
According to the shoe insole developers, the GSM card sends an alert signal and real-time location through the Safefoot app . Moreover, they explained that the anti-kidnapping shoe insole works with a rechargeable lithium battery.
The sensor is fully imperceptible since it is only one centimeter wide. “If a person is being kidnapped, all they have to do is scratch the sensor three times with their toes so that they may activate our GSM micro-controller,” the students commented.
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