Airbag bicycle helmet based on One Piece Woven technology

Project Information

The Invisible Helmet

Grant agreement ID: 718705

DOI

10.3030/718705

Project closed

EC signature date 21 March 2016

Start date 1 April 2016

End date 31 March 2018

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 1 967 770,00

EU contribution

€ 1 377 439,00

Coordinated by

HOVDING SVERIGE AB
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - The Invisible Helmet (Airbag bicycle helmet based on One Piece Woven technology)

Reporting period: 2017-04-01 to 2018-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

• Cycling is a crucial mode of transport in the common European challenge of making transport sustainable: cycling is energy efficient, environmentally friendly and very suitable for short distances.
• The use of helmet is not widely accepted by urban cyclists due to practical reasons, they are uncomfortable, cumbersome to carry around, look hideous, make sweat and ruin personal style.
• Hövding presents a head protection for cyclists unlike any other product on the market – an airbag for cyclists. Our device, compared with traditional helmets, is more than three times better shock absorbance, can withstand multiple impacts in one accident, reduces head rotation, provides a much larger protection area and stabilizes head and neck in the accident. Hövding is discrete, works with a hat and easy to fold and carry in bag.
• Hövding has been sold during around 3 years. Now we focus on expanding from initial test sales in Sweden to successive rollout across Europe. However, some limitations such as our manual manufacturing process impede us to scale up our product and meet our growth ambitions.
• The overall objective of our business innovation project is to automatize the manufacturing process of our airbag for cyclists called Hövding with the aim of scale-up and reduce production costs. To this end, airbag will be designed and manufactured in one piece with woven seams eliminating the need of conventional sewing. We also want increase the added value of our airbag by adding Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

• First prototype of One-piece Woven airbag has been verified and is available.
• Preliminary schematic design is available.
• Preliminary estimations of the different possibilities are available.
• First testing of our mobile software.
• Working first prototype of software on phone.
• Working hardware emulator of the Hövding.
• Specification of the server side of the system is available.
• Planned customer development activities
• Defined business innovation plan definition.
• Specifications are set for our communication plan.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

We have indications that we will see lower costs for the production of the helmet and that we will have the possibility to be the first IoT bicycle helmet.

People using our current product