Can you imagine a helmet that warns you when cars get too close?
US company Intelligent Cranium Helmets is said to be developing a helmet that can.
The company’s helmet concept, the iC-R (the “R” stains for Rider Edition), is said to have more electronics and safety technology than ever previously imagined in a helmet.
The helmet has twin colour head-up displays that not only display speed and other telemetry from the bike, navigation and phone functions but also show a video stream from twin rear facing cameras.
The helmet also has a LiDAR rear collision alert system.
LiDAR measures the distance to an object by shining a laser beam on it, and in this case the data is then used to warn the rider of a vehicle closing in from behind.
It notifies the rider through a series of coloured LEDs inside the helmet and also with warning sounds and vibrations.
The helmet has built-in Bluetooth communications and phone connectivity, and a solar panel to power the electronics.
Intelligent Cranium Helmets was started by Ambrose Dodson, who says the idea came to him after watching some motorcyclists riding in front of him in traffic.
He realised that to check the blind spots around them they needed to turn their heads to look, and in heavy traffic that meant the riders were constantly taking their eyes off the traffic ahead.
The two rear cameras give a field of view of 210° helping to eliminate those blindspots.
It sounds far fetched and ambitious, but a press release on the company’s website claims that ICH has entered into development agreements with a solar power company that has the capability to develop the entire power system for the iC-R helmet, and a prototyping company to develop the iC-R shell and other components.
A crowdfunding program has also been set up to raise capital.