By the end of the summer, I had a functional prototype, which the UPENN PD field tested during a university event (see video above).Īs part of this work, I filed two provisional patents (one before the summer and one after), and eventually filed a patent application. After an 18-month wait for the patent office response, however, I learned an earlier provisional filing beat mine by six months. The University of Pennsylvania Police Department generously arranged a focus group with their traffic control division from which I gained valuable user information to define the glove’s functional requirements and constraints. The only difference is that the colors of a traffic light are mapped to the hand motions to enhance the effect of the traffic command.įor the summer of 2007, I received funding from the Weiss Tech House Innovation Fund and the GAPSA-Provost Award for Interdisciplinary Research to further develop the traffic safety glove. The user’s hand motions for controlling traffic remain the same. A moment switch and a motion sensor built into the glove allow the user to control which side of the glove illuminates. The palmar side can illuminate in a red glow to signal STOP to one lane of traffic, while the dorsal side can illuminate in a green glow to signal GO to another lane of traffic. The device uses two flexible LED assemblies mounted to the palmar and dorsal sides of each glove. The Traffic Safety Glove is a hand illuminating tool designed to increase the visibility of traffic control personnel and improve communication of traffic commands. Every driver was confused and frustrated. It required considerable focus to separate the police officers from the head lights of oncoming traffic, and to figure out what traffic commands they were communicating. One night in December of 2006, I was driving down University Avenue in Philadelphia during a power outage, and found police officers stationed at most of the major intersections trying to direct traffic with flashlights.
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