Car-to-Bicycle Communicating Helmet

Volvo, the automotive company most of us associate with safety has gone ahead of the class again!  They have put in product car-to-bicycle communicating helmet for bicycle riders.  This is not just a lab experiment and something that works on “a Tuesday morning if it is sunny, and you are peddling your bike really slowly…”  but a real product instantiation — in a real SUV.

Volvo has implemented communications link that allows drivers to communicate directly with bicycle riders and avoid collisions on the road.   The solution is a GPS tracking application where the helmet (worn by the bicyclist) establishes a two way link between the rider and the driver, calculates the position of both the SUV and bicycle and ultimately the driver is notified via the Volvo dash information system, while the cyclist gets notified via a helmet mounted light.

You can also take a look at another very interesting concept (already funded on Kickstarter.com) bike — a connected bike which counts your spent calories riding, provides navigation guidance (via integrated lights and your smart phone GPS system), uses integrated proximity sensors to detect approaching vehicles and notify via vibration of their approach.    Here is a video by the developers: