Electronic Footwear RF Warning Logic for Blind-Corner Collision Avoidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current wearable technologies, such as smart footwear, face challenges in effectively monitoring pedestrians at blind corners or behind obstructions, leading to potential collisions with vehicles, as existing sensor systems are limited in their ability to detect individuals in these situations.
Innovation Solution
The development of an Internet of Adaptive Apparel and Footwear (IoAAF) system that integrates a detection tag in intelligent electronic shoes (IES) for wireless communication with vehicles or infrastructure, enabling footwear-to-vehicle (F2V) and footwear-to-infrastructure (F2I) communication, which allows for advanced pedestrian collision avoidance by aggregating and analyzing user and environmental data to provide warnings through visible, audible, and tactile alerts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional sensor systems are used in smart footwear, then the device complexity remains low, but the detection capability is insufficient for pedestrians at blind corners or behind obstructions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces RF transponders as intermediary devices that enable communication between the footwear and external systems (vehicles, infrastructure). These transponders act as mediators that carry detection and communication functions, allowing the footwear to benefit from enhanced detection capabilities without directly integrating complex sensor arrays into the shoe itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces traditional mechanical/optical sensor systems with RF-based detection and communication systems. By using radio frequency transponders instead of direct line-of-sight sensors, the system achieves enhanced detection capability while maintaining simplicity in the footwear device itself.
2Reliability
If direct line-of-sight sensing is used, then the device complexity is low, but the system reliability is reduced due to false negatives at blind corners or behind obstructions
Solution Approach 1:
The RF transponder serves multiple functions: it enables detection of vehicles and infrastructure, facilitates communication between footwear and external systems, and provides location tracking. This multi-functionality enhances reliability without requiring separate specialized components for each function, thereby avoiding increased device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary detection and warning actions before a collision threat becomes imminent. The transponder enables advance warning to both the pedestrian and vehicle operators, allowing preventive measures to be taken before the actual hazard materializes, thus enhancing reliability without requiring complex real-time response systems.
3Reliability
If advanced detection systems are integrated into footwear, then the collision avoidance capability is improved, but the weight of the footwear increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the heavy detection and processing components from the footwear itself and places them in external systems (vehicles, infrastructure). The footwear only carries lightweight RF transponders for communication, while the complex sensor arrays and processing units remain in the external environments, thus maintaining collision avoidance capability without significantly increasing footwear weight.
4Measurement precision
If RF transponders are used for F2V and F2I communication, then the detection range is extended beyond line-of-sight, but the energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The RF transponder system uses periodic communication rather than continuous transmission. The transponder activates only when prompted by external systems or when specific conditions are met, allowing extended detection range through RF communication while minimizing energy consumption by keeping the transponder in low-power states between communications.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The IoAAF system enhances pedestrian safety by providing early warnings and preventing collisions by eliminating the need for direct line-of-sight sensing, improving awareness of impending hazards and reducing false negatives, thereby ensuring safer interactions between pedestrians and vehicles.
Implementation Method 1
The transponder may be outfit with a frequency filter that limits incoming signals to those with the first frequency, a frequency converter that converts the incoming signal into the transparent output signal
Implementation Method 2
and an amplifier that intensifies the output signal based on the incoming signal
Implementation Method 3
a frequency filter that limits incoming signals to those with the first frequency
Data Source
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AI summary
Presented are intelligent electronic footwear with controller automated features, methods for making/using such footwear, and control systems for executing automated features of intelligent electronic footwear. An intelligent electronic shoe includes an upper that attaches to a user's foot, and a sole structure attached to the upper for supporting thereon the user's foot. A collision threat warning system, a detection tag, a wireless communications device, and a footwear controller are all mounted to the sole structure/upper. The detection tag receives a prompt signal from a transmitter-detector module and responsively transmits thereto a response signal. The footwear controller receives, through the wireless communications device, a pedestrian collision warning signal generated by the remote computing node responsive to the response signal. Responsively, the footwear controller transmits a command signal to the collision threat warning system to generate a visible, audible and/or tactile alert warning the user of an impending collision with a vehicle.