Pedestrians could soon be safer thanks to smart headphones able to decipher hundreds of street sounds and signal imminent harm.
Scientists are developing the pioneering pods in order to slash the surging number of pedestrian deaths.
The amount of people walking the streets with their faces glued to screens while listening to music — also known as “twalking” — is increasing.
In the last seven years “twalking” deaths have skyrocketed in the US, with pedestrian fatalities reaching a near 30 year high in 2018.
A research team is now developing the prototype headphones and testing them on New York’s noisy streets in a bid to reverse the trend.
Dr. Fred Jiang, a professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University, said: “We are exploring a new area in developing an inexpensive and low-power technology that creates an audio-alert mechanism for pedestrians.”
The headphones have miniature microphones and intelligent signal processing that detects the sounds of approaching vehicles. If a hazard appears near, the system pings an audio alert to the pedestrian’s headphones to warn them of the threat.
The scientists, writing in IEEE Internet of Things Journal said the research and development of the smart headphones is complex.
It involves developing a low-power data “pipeline” to process all the sounds near to the pedestrian.
The pipeline will contain an integrated circuit that identifies relevant sounds and extracts the correct cues to signal impending danger — all while minimizing battery usage.
The researchers are also using the most advanced data science techniques to design the high-tech headset.
Machine-learning models on the user’s smartphone will classify hundreds of acoustical cues from city streets and nearby vehicles.
The technology, which won a development grant worth nearly $1.2 million, will allow pedestrians to recognize the alert and respond quickly when they are in danger.
The researchers, who have won two awards for their prototype, are now testing it both in the lab and on the chaotic streets of New York.
Part of the team will conduct behavioral experiments to see how pedestrians can be alerted while wearing the headphones in a city environment.
Prof Jiang said his aim is to develop a prototype of the smart headphones at Columbia and then sell the technology to a commercial company.
“We hope that once refined, the technology will be commercialized and mass-produced in a way that will help cities reduce pedestrian fatalities,” he said.
Source: Nypost
