1. Materials and Methods (Continued)
Development of an Android application to aid in emergency reporting Joe Nichols Mentored by Thaddeus Klopcic
Introduction
Materials and Methods (Continued)
Results (Continued)
Integrating GPS location with 911 calls has been done through all forms of contact with call centers (U.S. Patent No. 5,479,482, 1995). This investigation focused on developing an application that can be used to report emergencies via as well as relay information about the user to the operator, streamlining the call reporting process. Finally, the application utilized smartphone features to aid first responders in locating the victim. A major issue in achieving this was making features from separate libraries work together. These features had to be able to function properly with one another in order to create an application capable of reporting an emergency and preliminary information textually as well as provide resources that enable the user to be located more easily by first responders.
found while using the app. The sent was checked for errors
and any errors reported by the testers or in the were fixed. Subjects were also asked to submit any suggestions for improvements to the user interface (UI) in order to better the overall experience with the app. Suggestions were taken into account and changes were made by developer’s discretion.
the type of emergency they are experiencing. When the user presses the send report button, the app calls the clients already installed on the phone and sends the information through preexisting addresses and clients.
After the is sent, the user could navigate to a screen which allows them to turn the LED on the back of their phone on as well as play a sound over the phone’s speakers which will aid first responders in locating victims of emergencies in situations where vision and hearing are limited.
Results
Conclusions
The purpose of this investigation was to develop an Android application that would be able to send a report via that alerted the person receiving the about the emergency, the location, information about the person sending the report, and some information about the emergency in progress. After that, the application was required to provide utilities that would aid first responders in locating the victim. The app was successful in being able to consistently find an accurate GPS location, as well as provide the utilities for being more easily found by first responders. The other features included require more development and further attempts are recommended.
Materials and Methods
This smart phone application was developed using JavaTM programming language with the Android special development kit (SDK) on the Android Studio platform. The lowest supported Android application programming interface (API) was API 11 and the target API was API 18. Error checking was done by creating additional apps with only a single feature. The errors in the apps were then corrected before the feature was added to the main application.
First, an application capable of displaying the GPS location of the user on the screen as longitude and latitude values was developed. An application capable of playing a sound and turning on the LED used as the flash on the phone’s camera was then created. These were then combined to create the core features of the app. In the new app, the ability to submit preset information such as name and age was added. The app was then programmed to submit the preset information, the latitude and longitude of the user, and the type of emergency selected, as well as any additional information submitted by the user through the phone’s client.
The application was installed and tested on a Samsung Galaxy S5 and volunteers were asked to test the application, first by entering data into the presets, and then by reporting an emergency. Tests were monitored and users were asked to report any errors
Figure 1: Info entry.
Figure 2: Emergency
reporting.
Figure 3: Light and sound.
The application consists of multiple activities, also known as user interfaces. The main activity allows the user to navigate to either the preset information screen, as shown by figure one, or the emergency reporting screen, as shown by figure two. The preset information screen allows the user to input information about themselves that would normally be asked when reporting an emergency.
When the is sent, the user’s presets will be sent along with the additional information typed by the user after selecting
References
Grimes, G. J. (1995). U.S. Patent No.  Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Acknowledgements
For his support, I would like to thank my faculty advisor Mr. Sloan. I would also like to thank the volunteers that provided feedback on my application. I would also like to thank Erik Debye for his input on my investigation.
Figure 4: sent by app.