In the case of cycling at a blind road, at night or cycling by elderly people, it is helpful to prevent accidents if information on bad road surface condition, such as break, potholes, obstacles, bumps, is preliminary obtained. In this paper, the authors consider to use a low-cost ultrasonic distance sensor attached on a bicycle for monitoring the road surface conditions in the front area. They design and implement a road surface condition monitoring system using an off-the-shelf node Arduino, an ultrasonic distance sensor, and a typical bicycle. In the implemented system, to limit the sensing region, the ultrasonic distance sensor is covered by a plastic shield plate. Through experimental evaluations, they show that the monitoring system can detect the 223 cm away obstacle on road in the front area of moving bicycle. (Author/publisher)
Abstract