He invents a 100% Quebec anti-theft system to counter car theft
A Quebec engineer has invented and designed a 100% Quebec anti-theft system that could slow down the scourge of car theft in Quebec.
Jean Poulin has designed the Intelligent Kill Switch (IKS) to discourage thieves from stealing a vehicle, wherever it may be. The system is installed inside the car, and the driver controls it via an application downloaded to his or her phone.
I started with the idea of keeping the vehicle in the parking lot and keeping it there," explains Jean Poulin in an interview with Le Journal. I also wanted to do something with today's technologies."
"I wanted to create a product with electronics and a mobile app to have access to a double authentication system."
When the IKS is installed in a vehicle, the owner or user of the car must disarm the system with his or her application before being able to start it.
Within a 100-meter radius, the application detects all vehicles equipped with the IKS system that you can start," explains Poulin. You select the car you want to drive from the list that appears on your phone, and you're good to go."
"If you don't, you'll never be able to start it."
The same goes for electronic keys, which can be copied without the owner's knowledge.
"The thieves will be able to get into the car, but they won't be able to drive it off because of our system. To do that, they're going to have to find and undo our system. That's going to be no easy task."
If the system senses a strong enough vibration or the car moves, an alarm is triggered and notifications are sent to the owner's phone. At the same time, a call center communicates with the owner, just like a house alarm system. The authorities are then notified of the theft in progress.
A system worth protecting
To ensure high technological reliability, Poulin has surrounded himself with cybersecurity experts such as Steve Waterhouse.
We wanted to protect our product so that we could give malicious people a hard time," says Poulin. Steve brought us a lot of points to prevent someone from cracking our system."
"He has enabled us to make our system more and more robust and to make it more complicated for criminals. The security level of our system will evolve with our application."
On the app, it is possible to put several drivers on the same vehicle. For example, members of a family of four - two adults and two children of driving age - can all have access to the app. The main owner can have parental control when his children take his vehicle.
Deployment in fall
Poulin and the IKSCanada.ca team hope to achieve mass deployment by the end of the year. The coming summer season will be used to ramp up production and increase the number of test drives.
Negotiations with several insurance companies are already underway. With the purchase of an IKS system, policyholders could benefit from a discount on their annual premium.
The exact price has not yet been determined, but Poulin assures us that the product will be accessible to the general public.
