After a hectic couple of weeks, I was finally able to get the new LIDAR prototype installed on my bike to take it out for it's first test ride this weekend. And it worked! Not perfectly of course, still a lot of things to iron out, but the proof of concept definitely shows promise. This is the latest ranging LIDAR prototype, complete with both visual and audio alerts - an LED display and audio blips when new objects come into range.

Taking the bike out on Valencia St in SF on Sunday afternoon, I was able to "see" other bicyclists behind me as well cars as they would approach up on my left side (riding in a bike lane). The visual range of the sensor was well beyond that of the ultrasonic system,and was able to provide clarity between a bicyclist riding behind me and a car approaching from behind (on the left) all at the same time. I was a little worried that the constant jostling of the bicycle while traveling over the street would disrupt the LIDAR sensor from working effectively (all the prior tests were with the sensor stationary), but the system worked just fine.

I just got a new GoPro and will shoot some footage of the new bike radar system in action as soon as I can (handy little cameras, I tell ya). In the meantime, here are a couple photos of it installed on my bicycle in my neighborhood after the test ride.

There's still a lot of work to be done to even get this functional prototype dialed in to be useful for cyclists ... getting the "refresh rate" of the LIDAR sensor perfectly timed, getting the software and the audio dialed in, not to mention all the design work on look-and-feel. Lots more to be done, but making real progress now.

When I brought the bike-seat-based LIDAR prototype home for testing earlier this month, I ran into a bit of a snag: the servo had stopped working. Apparently during transport a wire had wrapped around the servo and snapped one of the gears when it was turned on. I was unfortunately unable to do any testing with it, and had to bring it back to the shop for repairs.

In addition to the servo being replaced, the software was rewritten to further clean up the accuracy of the LED board and the audio chirps. Even the LIDAR sensor has a reasonable amount of "noise" to clean up to make sure there aren't any false positives with the system. 

This latest bike radar proof-of-concept was finally finished up this week and is ready to bring home for some testing out on the road! Here's a demonstration video by the Radicand guys:

More to come soon on how it holds up once I've taken it out for a ride in traffic.

Radicand finished up the second prototype this week and sent over a video demonstrating the new audio alert feature added to this prototype to pair with the visual display on the handlebars. This is a LIDAR system set up on a rotating servo, installed into a Companion Bike Seat as a proof-of-concept. As objects get closer to the sensor, the screen will light up. When things start to approach too closely, it will start chirping to let you know that you might need to react.

I'll be picking up this prototype tomorrow and bringing it home for some testing out on the road!

The sensor (on the servo) is shown in the photo above. The first video below shows the LED board lighting up as the car approaches, with the sensor stationary. The second video shows the servo in action, with the LED board showing three distinct data sets, one from each position of the sensor.

Next, we're going to install this latest proof-of-concept into a Companion Bike Seat (which ends up being perfect for this prototype) and take it out for some road-testing!

Based on the results with the first prototype, we decided to shift focus to the LIDAR sensor. It has a much longer range and a lot more accurate visibility than the ultrasonic sensor. The challenge is that it's a very narrow beam, and I want to provide a broader range of visibility for the rider than a single point directly behind. Rather than adding more expensive sensors to the system, we aim to solve this problem using only one LIDAR sensor. This is a video of the first explorations into expanding the broadness of visibility of the sensor, in this case attaching the LIDAR onto a servo pointing in three different directions.

Remember Johnny Five from the movie Short Circuit? The resemblance is striking I'd say ...

The challenge here is being able to turn the data received from the sensor into a two-dimensional picture based on the known timing of the shifts in position on the servo. Once we're able to successfully do that with this version taking three different angles, we can extrapolate this into the proper number of positions for the sensor to do a complete sweep across a broad enough angle to provide adequate range in visibility and very clean data for Velalert.

I picked up the first functional prototype of Velalert bicycle radar on Thursday of this week and brought it home for some testing over the weekend. We did a little testing at Radicand before loading it up to see how sensitive it was. It worked very well out to about 15 feet or so, but beyond that distance the prototype became a little "erratic" (extraneous blips). We're aiming for a much broader visibility range for Velalert, but I am still going to take this prototype out for some rides to get a sense for the front screen and how best to communicate information while riding along in traffic.

Here are a couple short videos I shot of the ultrasonic radar prototype in action. The first is indoors and the second is outdoors on the street outside Radicand. It's a little hard to see but the LEDs on both the rear sensor and the front screen increase as an object gets closer to sensor. Outside we simulated an approaching car by running up behind the bike with a board in hand.

I brought my bike down to Radicand on Friday this week because we had every intention of installing the ultrasonic radar prototype onto my bike for some initial testing. We want to get this first functional prototype up and running as quickly as possible so we can get it out onto the road and really understand what types of information is most helpful while riding and what the best way is to communicate that information.

Here are some pictures of both the radar sensor and the handlebar unit plugged in on the work-bench. 

After playing around with the prototype for a bit, the engineers decided they needed another couple of hours to get things dialed in and ready for installation onto my bike. We planned on meeting the following day, but then the microprocessor got fried somehow and needs to be replaced.

Bummer that it'll be another week or so waiting for the new microprocessor to arrive, especially since this holiday weekend would have been perfect to get in some good rides testing out the prototype. Such is life developing new products. 

The first prototype is almost fully assembled! Shown here is the ultrasonic sensor mounted in the temporary (prototype) casing with LEDs wrapped around the edge, lighting up as objects get closer to the radar sensor. This will be mounted to the seat-post of the bicycle facing backward, with an additional unit mounted to the handlebars for initial testing. 

In the video, we're using an Arduino board (temporarily) while working on getting a Teensy board set up properly for the ultrasonic radar sensor. The goal right now is to have it ready on Friday before the long weekend so I can take Velalert out for its first test drive!

I met up with the Radicand team today to check in on the prototype progress and got to see the 3D-printed casings for the radar sensor and for the handlebar unit. We got a new, smaller board to use for this prototype, and it didn't work quite the same as the Arduino board, so the prototype wasn't ready to install onto my bicycle just yet. However, if everything goes well, I'll be strapping this prototype onto my bicycle mid next week and will be able to take the first Velalert prototype out for a spin!