Publication

The overall trend in Sweden is that the number of fatalities and severely injured in traffic is constantly decreasing. However, bicyclists are the group of road-users that often suffer the most severe injuries when involved in accidents. In this project we want to investigate if a radar mounted on bicycles can help bicycle riders to get better situational awareness and thereby avoid getting into dangerous situations.

For active safety in vehicles, the state of art integrates radar-, lidar-, and camera-based sensors to create awareness for the vehicle and driver. To apply this kind of system on a bicycle would be unfeasible, since the cost would in some cases be as much as the entire bicycle. In this project we study and propose a low-cost sensor solution that improves traffic safety for bicycles that consist of only one of these sensors - the radar - it is the cheapest and most robust solution.

The project first identified the most relevant use-cases and in conjunction to this, identify a business model that can make the safety system attractive for end-users. Secondly, a radarbased safety system for bicycles is developed with both sensor and human interface. Finally, the system is evaluated in relevant traffic situations.

The SEBRA project aims for the following research questions:

- RQ1: What safety issues can be addressed by a radar-based safety system mounted on bicycles?

- RQ2: What performance requirements (field-of-view, computational capacity, power consumption, etc.) should such a system fulfil?

- RQ3: How should the interaction with the bicyclists be designed to give a high level of safety and user experience?

- RQ4: How can incentives and business models be developed to create a viable utility device for bicycles?

Within the scope of Open Research at AstaZero, we plan to simulate the selected scenarios from literature in the test track environment to finalize the answer for RQ1 and build answer for RQ2. The tests also contribute initial insights for RQ3 answer.