Viterbi students create theft detection app

At the Undergraduate Student Government Senate meeting Tuesday night, Rahul Madduluri, a junior majoring in computer engineering, and Suvil Deora, a PhD candidate in electrical engineering, announced the development of SafeNet, an upcoming system of theft detection and assault prevention developed at USC.

“[SafeNet] will help people trace their belongings and protect them from assault,” Deora said. “This technology takes the form of small wearables. You can put them in your backpack, in your bike or [on your body].”

Deora then walked the student senators through a hypothetical theft and the SafeNet response.

“Once you park your bike you will get a notification, which means your bike has been electronically locked,” Deora said. “The system then activates as soon as your bike is moved, but it won’t send an alarm to DPS unless it moves more than 10 meters. If that happens, it will send a notification to your phone, but there’s also a setting in the app that contacts DPS right away.”

Maddulari expressed how SafeNet will be simple in implementation and low in price.

“The student pays $15 and puts [SafeNet] on their bike or on [himself or herself],” Rahul said. “Then, someone with a wearable  [device] can press one button, and as soon he or she is in trouble [DPS] will know where he or she is. It’s pretty simple.”

Deora explained the logistics behind the technology, which requires a tight network of station bases around campus.

“We plant to implement a network around USC that allows DPS to track devices around when they are turned on or when a student is in a distress[ing] situation. There will be base stations on every block connected in a cell network,” Deora said. “With the technology you will be able to actually tell … which floor or which corner you are. Things can be tracked to specific places. That is the beauty of the technology.”

Madduluri then enumerated the benefits of SafeNet against other market competitors.

“The best part of [SafeNet] is that you don’t need Wi-Fi, no cell reception and no data cost. You buy this $15 device and that’s it,” Madduluri said. “They are also tamper-proof. If someone tried to break the wearables, we will still get a notification.”

Following a request from senators, Deora gave a figure for the cost of starting the system.

“The cost will depend on how much area the university plans to cover, but it will come to be at $300,000 for a start,” Deora said. “However, after that point, we’re only looking at $7000 for each square mile block of coverage you add. Once that is in place, everything will be cheap afterwards.”

Deora said that he and Madduluri saw a need on campus and responded to it.

“I’ve seen a lot of crime around campus,” Deora said. “Because this had been bothering students and the administration a lot, we asked if we could use the technology outside of the classroom.”

Senators also asked Deora for a possible timeline for implementation.

“Our first shipment of wearable devices comes next week. We will tweak them and get them working in a month’s time,” Deora said. “During the first part of the project, devices are to be handed [out] for free, which will be provided for in the original budget. Once people see this working, they will then start investing. And most parents would like their kids to wear this device.”

Madduluri attributed the source of his motivation for working on SafeNet to personal experience.

“The shooting [at] the Black Alumni Association [event] in the middle of campus happened my freshman year, and one of my best friends was 10 feet away from the shooter,” Madduluri said. “This struck pretty close to home, and I knew this was something I felt a passion for. Students prefer to have false alarms than to have those real arrests and thefts.”

Deora also discussed his motivations for working on the project.

“I started working on a localization project as part of my PhD. My electrical engineering professor [Bhaksar Krishnamachari] said we should think of taking this outside the lab. We had thought of similar applications in 2012, but there had been too many hurdles, and we’re finally here,” Deora said. “This technology was invented here at USC; we have been working on it and we want to use it.”