--- title: "Scientists: Pedestrians Could Wear Devices to Protect Themselves From Self-Driving Cars" description: "Should pedestrians wear radar-reflecting devices that make them ultra-visible to self-driving vehicles' sensors -- or is that too much to ask?" date: "2021-03-08" modified: "2021-03-08" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/devices-protect-self-driving-cars" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Computing" - "Devices" - "Robots and Machines" - "Self-Driving Vehicles" tags: - "Autonomous Cars" - "princeton" - "radar" - "the digest" --- # Scientists: Pedestrians Could Wear Devices to Protect Themselves From Self-Driving Cars ![Should pedestrians wear radar-reflecting devices that make them ultra-visible to self-driving vehicles' sensors -- or is that too much to ask?]() *\Image: Daryan Shamkhali via Unsplash / Futurism\* ## Car Culture The dream of self-driving cars arguably came toppling down in March 2018, when an experimental autonomous vehicle operated by Uber [fatally struck a pedestrian in Arizona](). Now, [*New Scientist* reports](), a team of scientists at Princeton has an idea to protect passersby from similar accidents in the future: they could wear radar-reflecting devices that make them ultra-visible to self-driving vehicles' sensors. ## Radar Revision The research, which the Princeton team [presented last month at the HotMobile conference](), proposes that pedestrians get used to carrying reflective gadgets that amplify vehicles' radar and send it back to them. "Both the pedestrian and the cars are working together towards the same goal, which is to make everyone safer," Princeton researcher Zhuqi Li told *New Scientist*. "Previously, people pushed very hard on the car side and tried to detect everything. It might be helpful to spend just a little more energy on the pedestrian side. I think we should try to explore every chance to make people safer." ## Very Vision The prototype gadget that Li and his colleagues cooked up cost about $2,000, according to *New Scientist*, and reduced the distance at which a radar device was able to detect the wearer from 36 meters to 10 meters. At the speed of an automobile, that difference could be enough to save lives — though whether consumers would ever be enthused about wearing an expensive device just to protect them from other people's cars is an open question. **READ MORE:** [Should we all wear sensors to avoid being run over by driverless cars?]() \[*New Scientist*\] **More on self-driving cars:** [*See Mini Self-Driving Cars Work Together to Improve Traffic Flow*]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()