Using a very low-cost hall sensor for motorcycle indicator automatic turn-off: an experimental study

Motorcycles are becoming the preferred means of transportation for many people in crowded and mild climate cities. Nevertheless, they still offer a rather low level of safety, as compared to cars, in which the use of electronic systems has led to effective improvements of the vehicle safety. The purpose of this paper is to show the feasibility of a very low-cost approach to the implementation of a control system that switches the motorcycle indicators off automatically. The electronic system is based on a low-cost industrial Hall sensor that is used to recognize when a turn is completed by reading the Earthpsilas magnetic field. The system electronics is simple and thus affordable for the motorcycle industry. Preliminary experimental results are shown and discussed to demonstrate the feasibility of the solution that may lead to a significant improvement of the safety of two-wheeled vehicles.