mea10730 Rene Olesen and Casper Slynge Mini Project

Our mini project is based on an observed problem that various media campaigns have tried to reduce for years. The so called “right turn”-accidents, a scenario where a heavy vehicle (such as a truck) needs to make a right turn in an intersection, and hits a cyclist or a pedestrian who is heading straight forward. This is due to blind angles, and although these heavy vehicles are equipped with several mirrors, these accidents still occur.

Notifying the truck driver about these vulnerable road users is crucial, but at the same time, the notification should not be too disrupting, as the driver needs to keep his focus on maneuvering the vehicle. So if a system could be installed, that automatically warns the driver with a discrete alert, it could raise the awareness of the driver without interrupting his driving.

We have used Bill Verplank’s framework for interaction design to sketch out the concept:

By detecting the surrounding cyclists with proximity sensors, the system should send out vibrations to a corresponding area of the truck driver’s seat. For the implementation of the prototype, we used the CUI32 board to connect four proximity sensors to four cell phone vibrators, by mapping their i/o ports in the CUI software.

Our code looks as follows:

10 dim prox1 as pin an0 for analog input
11 dim prox2 as pin an1 for analog input
12 dim prox3 as pin an2 for analog input
13 dim prox4 as pin an3 for analog input
20 dim vibe1 as pin rd1 for digital output open_drain
21 dim vibe2 as pin rd2 for digital output open_drain
22 dim vibe3 as pin rd3 for digital output open_drain
23 dim vibe4 as pin rd4 for digital output open_drain
30 dim threshold
40 let vibe1 = 0, vibe2 = 0, vibe3 = 0, vibe4 = 0, threshold = 1100
50 while 1 do
60 print prox1, prox2, prox3, prox4, vibe1, vibe2, vibe3, vibe4
100 if prox1 > threshold then
110 let vibe1 = 1
120 endif
130 if prox1 < threshold then
140 let vibe1 = 0
150 endif
200 if prox2 > threshold then
210 let vibe2 = 1
220 endif
230 if prox2 < threshold then
240 let vibe2 = 0
250 endif
300 if prox3 > threshold then
310 let vibe3 = 1
320 endif
330 if prox3 < threshold then
340 let vibe3 = 0
350 endif
400 if prox4 > threshold then
410 let vibe4 = 1
420 endif
430 if prox4 < threshold then
440 let vibe4 = 0
450 endif
460 sleep 100 ms
470 endwhile


To heighten the authencity of the prototype, we acquired a toy truck and mounted the proximity sensors on it. The following video demostrates the prototype in action. It can be difficult to see the vibrators moving, but it does work as intended.

Note: For the poster created for this concept, please check out our previous blog post.

– Casper & Rene