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Early Visual Warning of Objects

 
Every year, there are hundreds of thousands of crashes with objects on the road. In 2011, there were 256,000 crashes with animals, 69,000 crashes with pedestrians, and 51,000 crashes with pedal cyclists. Pedestrian fatalities accounted for 13.8% of all fatalities involving vehicles (NHTSA Safety Stats).

Crashes with objects often occur due to poor peripheral vision on the side of the road. For example, in the videos below, the vehicle's high beams are on and visibility of the cyclist is poor. Our headlight design is versatile enough to act as a peripheral spotlight drawing the driver's attention to objects on the road. [direct link to illustration above]


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Contact: Prof. Srinivasa Narasimhan


Our Approach and Results


Crossing Bicyclist: Our headlight can be spotlight hard-to-see objects on the road such as a bicyclist crossing the road. Based on our system's latency, an object traveling at 80 kph crossing 5 m in front can be spotlighted. [direct video link]
 
Bicyclist on Wrong Side of Road: Seeing bicyclists, even when driving toward a driver, are difficult to see without a bike headlight. Our headlight can spotlight them as well. [direct video link]

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