Project Falcon - Bicycle Hazard Warning System

Who Are We?

We are a team of soon to be graduating Mechatronics Engineers at the University of Waterloo. As a part of our final year we get to complete a Capstone Design Project, where we find a problem that we believe in and go through the design steps to create a final prototype solution. We met back in our first year at Waterloo and have come together with an expansive range of school and work experiences. Nathan Madonia specializes in mechanical design and is working on the mobile application. Kalli Bonin is working as our Product and Project Manager and designing the user experience. Alex Petkovic is in charge of electrical design and firmware. Meet Patel and Terry Bariciak are tag-teaming the software aspects for this project. Learn more about us on the website.

The Project: A Hazard Warning System for Cyclists

Urban environments are dangerous for cycling. Accidents with motorists are common and often unavoidable. Falcon is an intelligent safety system that uses an array of stereo cameras with computer vision and artificial intelligence to continuously monitor a cyclist’s surroundings.

The user is warned of potential hazards through an intuitive audio-visual interface, allowing them to take timely preventive action. Additionally, rear and side lighting increases visibility to motorists and a powerful front light illuminates the road ahead. It features a rugged weather-resistant design and extended battery life to support even the most challenging commutes. Falcon seeks to empower the next generation of safe urban cyclists.

The system attaches to a bicycle with three integrated modules. The first is the main module that houses all the electrical and computing components, the front cameras and lights, side cameras, battery, and the stereo alert speakers. The second is the rear module that holds the rear lights and cameras. Lastly, the phone mount clips to the handlebars so that the cyclist can view hazard warnings and safely see their surrounding area.

Electrical Hardware

To support the Raspberry Pi 4B computers, lighting, audio alerts, battery management, and mobile phone charging, a power distribution and load driving PCB needed to be designed. Additionally three PCBs needed to be created for the desired side and rear LED lighting.

The main Falcon PCB takes care of protecting, balancing, and charging the lithium polymer battery that powers the system. It also regulates the power from this battery or the AC/DC adapter to several different voltage rails to power different components. Notably, the high power 5.1V rail can supply up to 10A. This board includes the constant current driver for the high-power front LED, and open-drain drivers for the piezo buzzers (for audible alerts). To manage all of this, the main PCB is equipped with a STM32 microcontroller capable of measuring and generating analog signals, and generating several independent PWM signals. This microcontroller can interface with the front Raspberry Pi over SPI or I2C. Since the main PCB supplies several high power loads, it is outfitted with heatsink pours on the back plane which will interface with the aluminum enclosure via thermal pads. The Raspberry Pi's will dissipate heat through the enclosure similarly.

The three auxiliary lighting PCBs are equipped with constant current drivers to drive their LED arrays. The brightness of each array is controllable via a PWM signal which is generated by the main PCB.

Main PCB

LHS PCB

Rear PCB

Words to PCBWay

As a sponsor of school projects in the past, PCBWay has provided timely and professional PCB manufacturing and assembly services to us. We hope that PCBWay chooses to sponsor this project to help offset the expensive development costs, for an impactful project with a positive goal.

Due to time constraints, we have already paid for and ordered the PCBs noted in this project. If PCBWay is able to retroactively provide sponsorship, that would be much appreciated. They are currently in the manufacturing process.

Additionally, if PCBWay is able to offer monetary sponsorship over $100, our team will help advertise your brand in the following ways.

• Bronze - $100 - Your company name and logo on our website and poster
• Silver - $250 - Your company name and logo on our website, poster, and presentations
• Gold - $500 - Your company name and logo on our website, poster, presentations, and stickers on our prototype
• Platinum - $1000 - Your company name and logo on our website, poster, presentations, stickers on our prototype, and on our T-Shirts

We believe that PCBWay is a great service to the electronics industry, and would benefit from exposure to students, staff, alumni, and members of the public to which our project will be showcased at the 2022 Mechatronics Engineering Capstone Symposium, as well as throughout the project's development. Additionally, your services are directly related to our needs.