Cyclops Ride Assist

What it does

Cyclops Ride Assist is an all-in-one system that adds modern automobile safety features on any bicycle. With blindspot detection, crash detection, and video logging features, Cyclops keeps cyclists safe and motorists accountable while on the road.

Your inspiration

As North America pursues greener goals, it is expected that more people will adopt cycling as their primary method of transportation. However, many North American roads were not designed with cyclists in mind; some roads do not have any bike lanes to speak of, and many of those that do are nothing more than additional paint on an already narrow lane-way. When vehicles impact cyclists, the mismatch in size can result in a cyclist's serious injury or even death. Evidently, any means to improve the safety of all on the road, before, during, and after an accident is important to all who share the road, especially to those who travel by bicycle.

How it works

Cyclops has many features, including rear view detection and alerting, crash identification and response as well as video and data logging of 60 seconds prior and post-crash. With the average speed of a cyclist on the road around 25 km/h, having a vehicle approach from behind at a much greater speed puts the cyclist in serious danger. Using our rearview detection algorithm, a LiDAR sensor, and an LED strip, the user is alerted when a vehicle approaches their bicycle. Our crash detection system uses a sophisticated algorithm to analyze accelerometer data five times a second and accurately determine that an accident has occurred. When an accident occurs, the system automatically saves the last 60 seconds of front-facing camera footage and other environmental data (distance, acceleration) to a USB flash drive that is easily accessible to the user at any time. Users can also hit a button to save the footage and data at any time during their ride.

Design process

Our first iteration was built on a breadboard. Components were wired together on the breadboard using jumper cables for quick prototyping. Once we verified that the basic electrical and software components of Cyclops were functional, we transferred the breadboard onto a hand-soldered circuit board. At the same time, we used Autodesk Inventor to design and 3D-print a physical housing. However, as we were assembling this iteration, we realized how difficult it was to put together and take apart. The next, and current, iteration, we decided to swap some electrical components around to improve the design. We swapped from using individual LEDs to an off-the-shelf LED strip. This dramatically simplified the electrical circuit design. The ultrasonic sensor was also switched to a slightly more expensive, but much more performant LiDAR sensor. The biggest change to the current iteration was a complete redesign of the housing to align with a "design for assembly" philosophy. We redid the design to be more aesthetically appealing, faster to 3D print, and easier to assemble/disassemble. We tightened tolerances so all the components fit together snugly. We reduced the amount of unique components needed, and sped up assembly times by reducing the need to fiddle with small bolts and nuts.

How it is different

Cyclops is entering an already-established market of cycling safety products. Bike mirrors are a cheap solution for blindspot monitoring, but they are unintuitive and unhelpful in safety critical situations. Helmet- and handlebar-mounted cameras exist, but they do not have crash detection and thus require the user to spend hours sifting through video footage to find the clip they are looking for. Rearview radar products are also available, but they are expensive and take up valuable space on the handlebars. Cyclops stands out as a product that can offer all of these modern car safety features in a single sleek, portable package. The system runs on a single battery, and all the data collected is stored to a single accessible location. Because of this all-in-one integration, Cyclops keeps cyclists safe while they are on the road, and also covers them by providing valuable evidence when filing for insurance claims.

Future plans

The next steps for Cyclops involve optimizing the design and reducing cost with the intention of making it into a viable product. We want to switch from using a Raspberry Pi to an ARV microcontroller in order to reduce cost and power consumption, as well as achieve a smaller form factor. We will continue to test and optimize the crash detection algorithm, and make the physical housing more impact- and water-resistant. We hope to collaborate with a custom manufacturing service to begin injection molding the plastic parts in the future. All this will be to ensure that Cyclops is ready to launch into the cycling safety market.

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