Austin. Three students in the degree course of Electronic Engineering at the University of Bologna have invented a smart helmet designed to increase safety for motorcyclists. The innovative project, called Shelmet (Smart Helmet: intelligent self-sustaining multi sensor system for bikers), has won first place at the Texas Instruments Innovation Challenge, the largest electronics contest for students in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. This year, 900 participants including undergraduate, master, and PhD students participated. Shelmet is an intelligent and multi-functional helmet equipped with a series of innovative integrated sensors that signal danger, for example if the driver is experiencing sleepiness. Moreover, thanks to an infrared camera, the helmet is designed to increase night visibility: it can detect people or animals on the edge of a dark road and display them on an LCD display on the side of the motorcyclist’s field of vision. The different functions are voice operated and allow the rider to never have to take their hands off the handlebars. In addition to the innovative intelligent helmet it is also green because it uses a circuit that is capable of recovering energy from solar and kinetic sources. (9Colonne)
