Vitronic: More safety in road traffic
In the Cross Innovation Class, interdisciplinary teams of students developed solutions for the Smart City.
The challenge
Public road space is very limited, especially in city centres. Many participants with different mobility concepts come together in a confined space. Vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists, scooter riders, children, senior citizens) are exposed to the greatest risk of accidents.
VITRONIC relied on the input of interdisciplinary student teams in the Cross Innovation Class. They were looking for solutions to better protect vulnerable road users.
An important market for VITRONIC is traffic monitoring (speed measurement, section control, licence plate and toll control). These applications mean that there is already a broad infrastructure in the cities, which could be expanded with possible solutions from the Cross Innovation Class.
Output
A total of two interdisciplinary teams from five different universities and colleges worked for VITRONIC in the Cross Innovation Class. Thanks to the different team competences, two technically functional prototypes were created in just one semester.
The "Intelligent Light System" is a street lamp that recognises pedestrians using sensors and can therefore increase the brightness. The focus here is less on providing pedestrians with the right level of brightness for their needs and more on alerting approaching vehicles to pedestrians by changing the brightness.
The second prototype, "Siltent Guide", was developed in collaboration with an organisation for the blind. This involved developing requirements for a new type of cane for the blind. The solution is a module that can be attached to conventional canes for the blind, making them "smart". Specifically, the aim is to make it easier to cross traffic lights and reduce the noise pollution for residents caused by the previous (clicking) cane. The module can automatically request a green signal from the traffic lights and provide haptic feedback when the traffic lights give it.
Team: Ólga Vysotina, Inga Lau, Sina Barck, Felix Lanckohr, Maik Sicks, Philipp Duwe
"The Cross Innovation Class showed me that young creative people are passionate about making the cities of the future more sustainable and, above all, safer, especially in the area of mobility."
Format & method
In the Cross Innovation Class, students from three to six different universities work in interdisciplinary teams on the challenges of the project partners.
- The process follows the logic of design thinking: in iterative feedback loops with the partners, the teams approach a solution step by step.
- The entire process is managed by the Cross Innovation Hub team and supported by trained facilitators.
- Prototypes can be created and tested in the workshops of the partner universities.
Cross Innovation Class #2 took place in the winter semester 2019/20 on the topic of Smart City Solutions.
Our partner: Vitronic
VITRONIC provides complete solutions for image processing systems in the transport technology, logistics, photovoltaics, automotive, medical & pharmaceutical, packaging and body scanning sectors. The high-precision camera technology, combined with specialised software, is used for detection, inspection and automation in a wide range of applications. With over 1000 employees on 4 continents, the Wiesbaden-based company is a true hidden champion in its sector.
