Connected Road Safety
Exploring how embedded technology could improve awareness and safety for people moving near traffic.
- Type
- Private R&D · Embedded Systems · Early Development
- Status
- Phase 0 · Research & Hardware Setup
01Why I started it
I was tired of feeling unsafe around traffic.
I bike and run near cars a lot. When you're moving next to traffic, you have very little information about what's happening around you, and almost none about what's behind you. You hear something, you guess, you hope.
That got me wondering whether embedded technology could give people better awareness of their surroundings. Not a screen to look at. Just a clearer sense of what's around you, when it matters.
02The question
Can embedded technology give cyclists and runners better awareness of the traffic around them?
That's what I'm investigating. I don't have the answer, and I'm being careful not to assume one. The first job is to find out what small, affordable hardware can actually sense in real conditions, and whether that could ever turn into something a person could use in time.
- Road environment
- Research
- Prototype
03Current status
00
Research & Hardware Setup
I'm currently researching the system, preparing the first hardware setup, and waiting on components for the initial prototype. The next step is to begin experimenting with the hardware and learn what is realistically possible.
- Researching
- Parts arrivingnow
- Initial testing
04What I'm exploring
The work is broad on purpose. I'm learning the whole stack before narrowing anything down.
- 01Embedded systems
- 02Sensor integration
- 03Hardware prototyping
- 04Real-time processing
- 05System design
- 06Testing
05What I'm learning
So far it's mostly reading, planning, and choosing parts. That's already been an education.
Sensing technology I hadn't worked with before. Embedded hardware and the constraints that don't exist in software: power, size, weather, cost, and what a sensor can physically see. Researching problems I don't yet know how to solve, and designing on paper before a single part arrives so I know what to try first when they do.
The other thing I'm learning is restraint: how to validate an idea with the smallest possible setup before building too much of it.
This is an early-stage private R&D project. Some technical details and future product direction are intentionally not shown publicly while the concept is being developed.
