Intelligent Footwear Navigation Alerts for Obstructed Collision Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing footwear technologies lack advanced automated features for pedestrian safety, collision avoidance, and navigation assistance, particularly in environments where direct line-of-sight sensing is limited or obstructed.
Innovation Solution
Intelligent electronic footwear (IES) equipped with detection tags and communication modules that enable wireless interaction with infrastructure and vehicles, providing automated tactile, audio, and visual feedback for collision avoidance and navigation, and integrating with smart infrastructure for real-time threat assessment and alert systems.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If direct line-of-sight sensing is used for collision detection, then the sensing system is simple and direct, but it fails when line-of-sight is limited or obstructed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces detection tags as intermediary devices that are attached to pedestrians and communicate with vehicles via wireless signals. These tags act as mediators between the pedestrian and the vehicle's sensing system, enabling detection without direct line-of-sight between the vehicle's sensors and the pedestrian. The tags transmit presence information to vehicles, allowing reliable collision detection even when visual obstructions exist.
2Adaptability or versatility
If automated feedback systems are added to footwear for navigation assistance, then navigation capability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The intelligent footwear integrates multiple functions including navigation assistance, collision warning, and wayfinding capabilities within a single device. The footwear communicates with the detection tag system and receives navigation instructions, providing turn-by-turn directions and real-time guidance. This multi-functional approach allows the footwear to serve as both a protective safety device and a navigation aid, reducing the need for separate devices.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements automated feedback loops where the detection tag monitors the user's location and sends this information to the footwear's controller. The controller then provides real-time haptic, visual, or audio feedback to guide the user along the intended path. This continuous feedback mechanism enables adaptive navigation assistance that responds to the user's movements and environmental conditions.
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
Enhances pedestrian safety by preventing collisions through advanced warning systems and provides effective navigation assistance, overcoming limitations of direct line-of-sight sensing and improving user interaction with smart environments.
Implementation Method 1
An IES detection tag may reply to the incoming prompt signal, which may have an RF power with a first frequency, by retransmitting the incoming signal as a transparent output signal, which may have an RF power with a second frequency
Implementation Method 2
The transponder may be outfit with a frequency filter that limits incoming signals to those with the first frequency
Implementation Method 3
an amplifier that intensifies the output signal based on the incoming signal
Data Source
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AI summary
Presented are intelligent electronic footwear and apparel with controllerautomated features, methods for making/operating such footwear and apparel, and control systems for executing automated features of such footwear and apparel. A method for operating an intelligent electronic shoe (IES) includes receiving, e.g., via a controller through a wireless communications device from a GPS satellite service, location data of a user. The controller also receives, e.g., from a backend server-class computer or other remote computing node, location data for a target object or site, such as a virtual shoe hidden at a virtual spot. The controller retrieves or predicts path plan data including a derived route for traversing from the user's location to the target's location within a geographic area. The controller then transmits command signals to a navigation alert system mounted to the IES's shoe structure to output visual, audio, and/or tactile cues that guide the user along the derived route.