ECE Day '09 QuikiTrak's Drafting Zone Detector Part 1

Team 5: QuikiTrak
Drafting Zone Detector
for Triathlon

Team Members: Karen Cui, Shawn Doria, Pavel Gilenberg, Andy Lee, Takao Yamada
Customer: Professor Jeffrey Carruthers (BU ECE)

In triathlon races, there is a no-drafting rule for the bicycle portion of the race. This rule is enforced to prevent a player from getting an unfair advantage due to lesser wind resistance provided by the drafting. It is very difficult to determine whether an athlete has violated the no-drafting rule; violations are usually detected by a person watching the race.

The project is to design a lightweight sensor device that can be mounted on a bicycle to enforce the no-drafting rule. A draft event occurs when a bicycle comes within 7(±0.5) meters from behind another bicycle. A pair of sensor devices utilizing opposed infrared optical sensors in the 950nm range will be mounted on the front and back of each bike to aid in the detection of a violation. These sensors will then be connected to an MSP430 which will receive signals from the infrared sensors and determine whether a drafting violation has occurred. In the event of a drafting violation a record of the violation will be stored on the onboard flash.

After the race, the device will transfer the information onto a computer to be processed and displayed by custom-made software. The custom made software will then store the data in a SQL Server database. The software than interacts with the database to allow the judge to sort and search through the draft violations.

For more information:
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NE_5ufbJ8E

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Boston
• University
• Electrical
• and
• Computer
• Engineering
• ECE
• Day
• Bicycle
• Triathlon
• Sensing