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AA Headlight
The Actively Adjusting Headlight was my senior design project at Wentworth Institute of Technology, and was completed collaboratively.
Without sufficient lighting along roads, visibility becomes a concern for motorcyclists, especially when maneuvering through tight turns. The complication with motorcycle headlights currently is that they are fixed to the bike, which diminishes visibility around corners. When a motorcyclist leans into a turn, the beam of light tilts at the same angle, creating dark voids in critical locations. Additionally, the projected light follows the tangential path of the motorcycle, rather leading into the turn itself while undergoing curvilinear motion. These unaccommodated spaces obstruct motorcyclists from achieving the safest riding experience possible, which allows freedom for innovation. The AA Headlight would address these visibility concerns, operating with 2-axis movement in both the tilt and pan directions to eliminate unnecessary dark voids.
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The prototype that we created for this mechanism functions with two servo motors that actively adjust with readings from a gyro sensor, which is all programmed with an Arduino Nano. My capstone group was able to produce a working device by the end of our term, having started with nothing but an idea and overcoming numerous barriers throughout the journey. This has made the AA Headlight one of the most exciting and memorable projects of my education.
See here for a video of the working mechanism and here for the full technical report.