Wearable Alert Device for Vulnerable Road Users
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing collision-avoidance and mitigation technologies primarily focus on vehicle-based responses and do not effectively alert vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians or cyclists, especially those wearing noise-canceling headphones or who are deaf or blind, to impending impact events.
Innovation Solution
An individual alert system and method that uses either a device configured to detect vehicle alerts or a vehicle system to emit signals, providing audible, visual, or haptic alerts to vulnerable road users, ensuring they are aware of impending impacts, even in noisy or low-visibility conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If vehicle-based collision-avoidance systems provide audible alerts to drivers, then driver awareness of impending impact events is improved, but vulnerable road users wearing noise-canceling headphones or who are deaf or blind cannot perceive these alerts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary device (wearable alert device) that mediates between the vehicle's detection system and the vulnerable road user. The vehicle's system detects the impending impact and communicates with the wearable device, which then delivers the alert directly to the user through multiple sensory channels (visual, haptic, audible), bypassing the limitation of traditional audible-only alerts that vulnerable road users cannot perceive.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from a single-dimension alert system (audible only) to a multi-dimensional alert system by incorporating visual displays, haptic feedback, and audible alerts. This dimensional expansion ensures that at least one alert modality will be effective regardless of the user's sensory limitations, such as hearing impairment or noise-canceling headphone use.
2Reliability
If the system uses multiple alert modalities (audible, visual, haptic), then alert effectiveness for all vulnerable road users is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The wearable alert device is designed as a universal platform that can deliver multiple types of alerts (visual, haptic, audible) through a single integrated device. This multi-functional design consolidates what would otherwise require multiple separate devices into one universal alert system that adapts to different user needs and situations.
Solution Approach 2:
The alert system dynamically selects and adjusts the modality and intensity of alerts based on real-time conditions. The system can adaptively choose whether to use visual, haptic, or audible alerts, or combinations thereof, depending on the detected situation and user response, making the complex multi-modal system manageable through intelligent dynamic control.
3Measurement precision
If the wearable device continuously monitors for vehicle alerts, then detection of impending impact events is improved, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The wearable device employs periodic monitoring rather than continuous monitoring, checking for vehicle alerts at regular intervals. This periodic action maintains adequate detection accuracy for safety-critical events while significantly reducing energy consumption compared to continuous monitoring, allowing the device to operate longer on battery power.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses event-triggered monitoring where the wearable device activates full monitoring modes only when potential alert signals are detected, otherwise operating in a low-power standby mode. This self-service approach allows the device to maintain high detection accuracy when needed while minimizing energy consumption during normal operation.
Data Source
AI summary
A pedestrian alert system and method that acts in two alternative manners: (1) an individual device is configured to “listen” for an audible alert (over ambient noise) or “look” for a visual alert issued by the driver of a vehicle, or the vehicle itself, in advance of an impending impact event and, upon detecting such audible or visual alert, issue a local alert to a pedestrian, cyclist, scooter rider, skateboarder, or other vulnerable road user wearing the individual device; and (2) upon the automated detection of an impending impact event by a vehicle, the vehicle is configured to automatically emit an audible and/or non-audible signal that is detected by the individual device associated with the pedestrian, cyclist, scooter rider, skateboarder, or other vulnerable road user and acted upon to locally alert the pedestrian, cyclist, scooter rider, skateboarder, or other vulnerable road user of the impending impact event.