Crosswalk Sensor System

A number of safety concerns persist with modern crosswalks. People are distracted by things in their car, or their surroundings can make it hard to see oncoming pedestrians. With today’s self-sufficient power technologies, available sensors, and cheap low-power wireless communication protocols, it is possible to create digital signage to warn of oncoming pedestrians. By using distance sensors such as ultrasonic or infrared sensors, systems can detect where objects, or in this case people, are with respect to a sensor on a fixed pole. With low-powered illumination technologies like LEDs and low-powered IoT communication protocols like ZigBee, a system can communicate to other hardware and human drivers without needing a great deal of power to do so in a world where there is an increasing emphasis on being eco-friendly. Additionally, by using energy harvesting equipment such as solar panels, it is possible to power such a system without having to connect it to an external supply of power requiring fossil fuels or other costs associated with working with an energy provider. Therefore, such a system is feasible and could save people from extraordinary pain as they do the ordinary task of crossing the street