Almost a year ago, Volvo announced that it was working with Swedish helmet manufacturer POC to develop a car-to-cyclist safety system. At the time, little information was available regarding how the system would actually work. Today, however, the automaker provided some details.
First of all, cyclists must be carrying a smartphone running an app such as Strava, which tracks their location in real time. That information is sent to a cloud-based program, as are the locations of all Volvo cars that are part of the system.
If the software detects that a cyclist and a car are on a collision course, it will send a proximity alert to both of them. The cyclist will be notified by a helmet-mounted warning light visible in their peripheral vision, while the driver will be alerted via their vehicle's head-up display. Both parties can then take evasive action.
Swedish mobile communications company Ericsson is also involved in the project. There's no word on whether or not a system-specific helmet must be used, although more information will be provided when the technology is presented next month at CES. In the meantime, you can see it demonstrated in the short video below.
Volvo has previously broadened its radar/camera-based Pedestrian Detection system to include cyclists.
Source: Volvo
