CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 THE BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT
It was reported that as many as 1000 cars were stolen monthly in Nigeria  in the year 2000. The existing vehicle alarm systems are of no match to the well-equipped thieves. In the United States, there are already many transportation companies and vehicle manufacturers  that employ Global Positioning System (GPS)  based location and tracking system combined with conventional cellular communication for stolen vehicle recovery as well as for constant monitoring of vehicle fleet management. However there are situation where the GPS system cannot perform well such as at underpasses and indoor parking. Most cars are still using he conventional alarm system which is easily handled by car thief. One major problem in those car alarms is tuning and adjustment. There may be so many car alarms that are too sensitive, while the rest can withstand a major earthquake without a single beep. Consequently, the public loose interest in the car alarms since they could be falsely triggered. Another weak point is that, it has limited capability to interact with its owner. In addition, the conventional alarm systems did not provide any means in assisting the recovery of stolen vehicle.
A car tracking system is an electronic device that being installed in a vehicle to demobilize and find the area where the vehicle is located by the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled phone and the signals from any communication firm, but here we used MTN telecommunication service provider.
With your GPS enabled phone you will call the phone number of the phone that is attached to the car security device which will indicate where or the position where the car is being demobilized for recovery. It only indicates the position where the Network masts you are using being installed.
TYPES OF CAR TRACKING SYSTEM
Car tracking system can be categorized into various forms, namely passive and active car tracking system. However what determines whether the system is passive or active depends on the mode through which information can be extracted from the system by the owner or the authorized user.   
fig 1.1
1:1:1 PASSIVE CAR TRACKING SYSTEM
A passive car tracking device provides the records of journey activities, which includes the destination and the speed used by the driver of the car. This performs demobilizing and tracking but the difference is that the active one gives a real time   data while passive one can only bring a report when the car reaches at a destination point for the owner to be able to process out data recorded and stored in the memory of the microcontroller. This system provides real time data transfer and makes use of a GPS phone and signals from any network that have GPS masts to carry out its tracking. Once the authorized person calls the number assigned to GPS phone he/she will be able to get a real time data as regards to where the car is as at that particular moment. For this project, the installation deals with where and how the connections of the car tracking device are made.  The car tracking system which is mainly the Global Positioning system phone working with signals from MTN network is interconnected together with a relay which has an automatic switching connected to a cable supplying mains to the fuel pump of the car.