Rising pollution and noise levels as well as inner-city congestion mean that cargo bikes are increasingly being used to serve the growing volume of parcels in e-commerce. Contrary to the ecological and economic advantages, however, cargo bikes are often not recognized by other road users in inner-city traffic. In order to prevent accidents and dangerous situations, it is necessary to develop driver assistance systems based on the special requirements of bicycle concepts in order to make everyday working life for bicycle couriers as pleasant and as safe as possible.

With a view to efficiency-enhancing process optimisation in city logistics, the project aims to develop an intelligently networked bicycle helmet (SmartHelm). This helmet is equipped with augmented reality glasses, multilingual voice control, an eye-tracking module for recording eye movement data and special electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes to capture the driver's attention. SmartHelmet is intended to make the everyday work of bicycle couriers easier and help to avoid accidents and dangerous situations by identifying stressful situations at an early stage. 

SmartHelmet  researches the factors that influence attention control and stress in bicycle delivery staff. The project pursues a new approach to the collection and analysis of attention-related biophysiological data in the field. For the development of the SmartHelmet, initial prototypes are being tested in iterative test phases in field trials with bicycle couriers. The experience and feedback of the users is directly incorporated into the further development of the prototype, with special attention being paid to data protection issues. Concepts for the transferability of SmartHelmet to other regions and application domains will be developed and implemented within the project.

01.11.2019

• Prof. Dr. -Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez
• Johannes Schering