WO2010016084A1

WO2010016084A1 - Protective helmet with a speed measuring system and processor for data storage.

Info

Publication number: WO2010016084A1
Application number: PCT/IT2009/000340
Authority: WO
Inventors: Andrea Davighi; Fabio Umberto Malnati
Original assignee: Andrea Davighi; Fabio Umberto Malnati
Priority date: 2008-08-04
Filing date: 2009-07-29
Publication date: 2010-02-11
Also published as: ITMI20080252U1

Abstract

The system which has to be patent intend to produce a protective helmet, that can be used for different sport fields (in particular sky and bike). The helmet allows the user, by an anemometer, to obtain informations about some parameters like: velocity of the user who wears the helmet and atmospheric pressure. The system is equipped with a small CPU (processor) in order to acquire informations and a mass memory to store data so the system could handle further sensors to acquire further measurements like, for example, temperature. The anemometric system can be realized by a cup anemometer or by a Pitot tube using a differential pressure. The system with the cup anemometer foresees the measurement of velocities by the measurement of rotation velocity of a small cup anemometer placed on the helmet and the correlation between the anemometer rotation velocity and the velocity of the user which wear the helmet. The Pitot tube foreseen the acquisition of a differential pressure taken by different measure points placed on the helmet which can lead instantly to the velocity of the user by a miniaturized manometer. It is foreseen that all the systems which can acquire the velocity can also transmit to the user the information about velocity in real-time by and acoustic and vocal signal or by visualization system. The system can handle and store the parameters (data) acquired from sensors by the integration, inside the helmet, of a CPU (micro processor) and a mass memory.

Description

DESCRIPTION

TITLE

Protective helmet with a speed measuring system and processor for data storage.

TECHNICAL FIELD

6 The system which has to be patent intends to produce a protective helmet that can be used for different sport fields (in particular sky and bike). The helmet allows the user, by an anemometer, to obtain informations about some parameters like: velocity of the user who wears the helmet and atmospheric pressure.

10 With this new system will be developed in order to give a new solution to the sportsmen who practice sports where the knowing of parameters like velocity environment temperature and atmospheric pressure can be useful or even fundamental.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

16 The anemometric system can be realized by a cup anemometer or by a Pitot tube using a differential pressure.

The system with the cup anemometer foresees the measurement of velocity by the measurement of rotation velocity of a small cup anemometer placed on the helmet and 20 the correlation between the anemometer rotation velocity and the velocity of the user which wear the helmet.

The Pitot tube foreseen the acquisition of a differential pressure taken by different measure points placed on the helmet which can lead instantly to the velocity of the user by a miniaturized manometer. 25 The system is equipped with a small CPU (micro processor) in order to acquire informations and a mass memory to store data so the system could handle further sensors to acquire further measurements like, for example, temperature.

It is foreseen that all the systems which can acquire the velocity can also transmit the informations about velocity in real-time by an acoustic/vocal signal or by visualization 30 system to the user. The acoustic and vocal system can give informations about the current velocity and about the overtaking of a predefined velocity like a speed limit. The visualization system can be obtained by a led light or a sequence of led lights or again by a mini display.

The single led light can give information about the overtaking of the speed limit; the sequence of led lights can give qualitative informations about the velocity with a fixed step and again the overtaking of the speed limit.

The mini display can give all informations showing them. The mini display can be installed directly on the helmet or on the sky glasses.

The system can handle and store the parameters (data) acquired from sensors by the integration, inside the helmet, of a CPU (micro processor) and a mass memory. The parameters acquired by the integrated system depend on the type of sensors are integrated in the helmet. The parameters can be the temperature of atmosphere and the atmospheric pressure.

The system is composed by: an anemometer and the electronic device, able to take informations about the velocity of the user and environment parameters, integrated inside a protective helmet for sport discipline.

At the moment the item has passed the design phase, it has been built as prototype and has to be verified with a test campaign inside a wind tunnel. The wind tunnel tests will demonstrate the reliability and precision of the speed measurement.

The patent foreseen to realize a compact system able to give informations, in real time and not in real time, to the user. It foreseen to use as an alternative one of the following speed measurement systems and their miniaturized measurement chains integrated inside the protective helmet.

SPEED MEASUREMENT BY CUP ANEMOMETER

It is foreseen the integration of the system inside the helmet of a miniaturized cup anemometer with, on the mobile part of anemometer, a sensor (a proximity sensor or an

5 encoder) which is able to evaluate the rotation velocity of anemometer. The analogue signal of the sensor, a periodic signal, has a period which depends on the rotation velocity of the sensor.

The signal is transmitted to microcontroller (a PIC or a CPU) which is suitable programmed in order to derive the velocity of helmet user by the rotation velocity of the

10 cup anemometer. The transfer function between anemometer rotation velocity and user speed has to be evaluated. The microcontroller has a digital output which can be used to control the communication system selected from the list showed before (acoustic, vocal, visual by led, visual by display). A temperature sensor and a atmospheric pressure sensor are foreseen in order to evaluate

15 the air temperature and density and the analogue signals are read and handled by the microcontroller. '

The microcontroller can handle also a mass memory to store the data collected and a serial port (RS232 type) or a USB link is foreseen in order to download on a computer, by a suitable software, the data for further analysis or a post-processing.

20 The working principle of this equipment is based on the use of a cup anemometer which is well known and used in different fields. It works using the force transmitted by the pressure of a fluid with a relative velocity (velocity between sensor and fluid) on the cups of the anemometer. The anemometer mechanic and electric characteristics which allow to evaluate the user

25 speed are several like: numbers of cups, cups dimensions, momentum of inertia of rotor, anemometer position on the helmet and electrical power supply and output of sensor. A lot of these parameters can be modified by the aerodynamic characteristic of helmet and by the top velocities which it is intended to evaluate. SPEED MEASUREMENT BY PITOT TUBE

It is foreseen the integration of the system inside the helmet of a miniaturized Pitot tube able to evaluate the velocity of the user by the evaluation of differential pressure between

5 total pressure and static pressure. Moreover it is foreseen the capability to acquire the temperature and atmospheric pressure (by integration of relative sensors and acquisition systems) by the system and the capability of showing the data in real time t the user. It is foreseen also to have interesting utilization in sky, in some European sky districts the speed limit will be or it is yet introduced in order to reduce the accidents, often with

10 serious inj uries .

By the introduction of the speed limit on the sky runs, it is necessary to provide to the skier for an equipment able to communicate the velocity in order to keep the velocity under the limit. Moreover for the agonistic skiers the capability of the system to store and download the data on a computer for a post processing could be useful in order to

15 evaluate the performance during trainings and races.

The Pitot tube is an item which is able to evaluate the module of the local velocity vector of a fluid, once known the direction of the fluid current and fluid density, by the measurement of total pressure P_totand the static pressure "p". It has a good reliability and precision, but not suitable to measure the instantaneous velocity in fluid current highly

20 turbulent or not stationary.

The response time of measurement chains about pressures (pressure tap, pipes, and transducer or manometer) is quite high and the space needed to capture them is very small (the measurement volume is less than few cubic millimeters).

Pitot tube Working principle

Pitot tube functioning is based on the definition of total pressure which is calculated by the sum of static pressure p and the dynamic pressure, in a given point of motion field 5 P(x,y,z) and in a given instant t.

The total pressure can be written even in the following way:

Omitting to indicate explicitly the dependency from the point (x,y,z) and the time about 10 the total pressure is calculated. It is evident that, when both quantity (static and total pressures) and the fluid density are known, it is possible to evaluate the velocity of the fluid by the following transformation:

15 It is also evident that since the Pitot tube is used in fluid current with viscous fluid which has a rotational motion, excepted for the presence of a boundary layer near the Pitot tube so the Bernoulli theorem can be applied.

The problem of measurement of velocity in a given point of the motion field of the fluid is reduce to the measurement of the total pressure and the static pressure in the same 20 place end time. The explanation can be made easier by the pictures annex to the patent which show the technical detail of the solutions proposed. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Figure 1 - Plate 1 Overview of the helmet with cup anemometer

Figure 2 - Plate 1 [detail 1] the detail of the lodging of the cup anemometer

Figure 3 - Plate 2 shows the detail of the components of the system with the cup anemometer

Figure 3 - Plate 2 [detail 2] shows the electronic board integrated inside measurement chain for the cup anemometer Figure 3 - Plate 2 [detail 3] shows the battery integrated inside measurement chain for the cup anemometer Figure 3 - Plate 2 [detail 4] shows the proximity sensor or the encoder integrated on the static part of anemometer inside measurement chain for the cup anemometer Figure 3 - Plate 2 [detail 5] shows the proximity sensor or the encoder integrated on the rotor part of anemometer inside measurement chain for the cup anemometer Figure 3 - Plate 2 [detail 6] shows the rotor part integrated inside measurement chain for the cup anemometer Figure 3 - Plate 2 [detail 7] shows the rotor body where the cups are installed, integrated inside measurement chain for the cup anemometer Figure 4 - Plate 3 shows a internal view with a possible accommodation of the components of the cup anemometer and measurement chain Figure 5 - Plate 3 shows an overview of a possible configuration of the helmet with the Pitot tube Figure 6 - Plate 3 shows a detail of a possible configuration of pressure transducer in the helmet with the Pitot tube Figure 6 - Plate 3 [detail 8] of a possible lodge for the pressure transducer and the others components in the helmet with the Pitot tube Figure 7 - Plate 4 shows components about the measurement chain of the helmet with the Pitot tube Figure 7 - Plate 4 [detail 9] shows the battery which is devoted to supply the electrical power to the measurement chain installed on the helmet with the Pitot tube Figure 7 - Plate 4 [detail 10] shows the electronic board installed inside the helmet with the Pitot tube Figure 7 - Plate 4 [detail 11] shows the detail of the end part of the pipe which has to transmit the total pressure to the pressure sensor inside the helmet with the Pitot tube Figure 7 - Plate 4 [detail 12] shows the detail of the end part of the pipe which has to transmit the static pressure to the pressure sensor inside the helmet with the Pitot tube

Figure 7 - Plate 4 [detail 13] shows the detail of the pressure sensor inside the helmet with the Pitot tube

Figure 8 - Plate 4 [detail 11] shows the cross section of the helmet with the Pitot tube.

Claims

Claim 1: A protective helmet for sports use or others equivalent use which has integrated inside the helmet or has attached to the helmet, for the first time, a speed (velocity) measurement system by anemometer

Claim 2: A protective helmet for sports use or others equivalent use which has integrated inside the helmet or has attached to the helmet a speed (velocity) measurement system made by an anemometer which can be made by a Pitot tube or as an alternative by a cup anemometer as main sensor

Claim 3: A protective helmet for sports use or others equivalent use which beyond the invention described in claims 1 and 2 foreseen an acoustic and vocal system to communicate to the user the velocity and the overtaking of a defined limit speed. The acoustic/vocal system shall be integrated in the helmet.

Claim 4: A protective helmet for sports use or others equivalent use which beyond the invention described in claims 1, 2 and 3 foreseen a visualization system (which can be used as an alternative or together with the acoustic system) to communicate to the user the velocity and the overtaking of a defined limit speed by led or a led system, or by a display. The visualization system shall be integrated in the helmet or in the sky glasses.

Claim 5: A protective helmet for sports use or others equivalent use which beyond the invention described in claims 1, 2, 3 and 4 foreseen the use of a microprocessor or an equivalent system, integrated inside the helmet, able to collect and process analogue signals coming from sensors (anemometer, temperature, atmospheric pressure) and evaluate the velocity. The microprocessor or en equivalent system has to calculate the velocity and communicate it by a communication system described in claims 3 and 4. Moreover the microprocessor or an equivalent system is able to store the data (velocity temperature and atmospheric pressure), with a absolute or a relative time correlation, inside a mass memory to allow the user to download the data on a computer by a suitable link and software for a further analysis or post processing.