UC Irvine

Goal: To assist drivers in seeing more clearly and navigating more safely during the night time using Infrared and Bluetooth technology. Areas with low visibility, such as suburban neighborhoods and mountainsides that are not readily outfitted with street lights, pose a danger to both pedestrians and drivers. In these situations, using your low-beam headlights might not illuminate the road far enough to avoid dangers. Drivers can choose to use their high beams to see further, but at the cost of blinding oncoming drivers, which is unsafe for anyone on the road. In another situation, regardless of lighting conditions, the use of GPS devices are common to make one’s commute easier. However, many GPS devices, whether it is already built into the vehicle, or if it’s an external device, requires the user to avert their eyes away from the road to view a map or the upcoming turns. This process of taking one’s eyes off the road to look at the center console or the GPS device, can be distracting and dangerous. Our project aims to address the problem of (1) low visibility, by emitting and capturing infrared light (IR), light outside the visible spectrum, to better illuminate the road at night, and (2) distracted driving, by allowing the user to view the IR capture and their GPS devices in the form of a heads-up display (HUD) that will be directly situated in front of the driver.

Team Members

James Slong - CpE slongj@uci.edu

Ryan Barekat - CpE rbarekat@uci.edu

Cesar Tejeda - EE tejedac@uci.edu

Michael Nguyen - EE mvnguye1@uci.edu

Advisor: Fadi Kurdahi

Website: http://nighthud.wordpress.com/