Reducing Carbon Footprints Through a Novel Approach to Bicyclist Safety Using an Applied Arduino Sensory Network

Abstract:

To reduce carbon footprints and for health reasons, there has been a significant increase in the number of people using bicycles as transportation—a 60% increase in bicyclist commuters over the past decade—with a surge of traffic related bicyclist accidents. In the US in 2018, 857 bicyclists were killed in these incidents. This was the main motivation to create this vest. The purpose of this vest is to reduce vehicle-bicycle accidents by employing the use of sensors to signal differences in the environment with auditory and visual warning signals to drivers and bicyclists. This vest was created based on certain criteria of robustness, bulk, power, and efficiency of use. The criteria stated that the vest must weigh less than 3kg, stay intact when worn on a bike, use an AAA battery, operate without much instruction, must signal a bicyclist's presence in the dark, must signal when a bicyclist turns, and inform a bicyclist when a vehicle is moving closer than 3m. The design and build process had three stages of modeling, where a digital model was created to visualize the product. This allowed to organize the board and wire connections, and led to prototyping. Here, the organization of the model was applied to an actual Arduino, where the sensor, board, and power source were connected. This form allowed for the code for the sensors to be uploaded to the Arduino board from the Arduino Central to be tested. Once the prototype was finalized, the sensors and LEDs were connected with interwoven conductive wire. The sensors were placed in strategic locations to collect data from the environment. After the construction of this vest, sensor accuracy was tested. The use of the LEDs were shown by a visibility test in which a driver observed a bicyclist wearing a vest versus not wearing a vest and recounted when visibility of the bicyclist was lost. The accuracy of the proximity sensor was shown by a test in which a driver approached a bicyclist wearing the vest and stopped when the proximity alarm sounded. The first test showed that a bicyclist wearing the vest improved visibility for the driver by 232% and the second test showed that the points where the sensor sounded had error bars in which the safe range of 3m fell 100% of the time. These tests with the sensors show that the design process led to a vest that creates a safer riding experience for bicyclists and drivers.