Cristovian Basden is an electrical engineering major finishing his BSEE in December of 2011. His primary motivation for pursuing electrical engineering has been power production. In pursuit of these interests, Cristovian has interned at Siemens Energy for the last two years where he works with the wind turbine engineering group. Cristovian is currently searching for a full time position within Siemens where he can develop a lifelong successful career in power systems.

Rebecca Rashkin is currently a senior level electrical engineering student at the University of Central Florida. She is graduating with University Honors in December of 2011. For the past two years, she has been working as a drafter for CDM, a consulting engineering firm, where she has been learning about power distribution for water treatment facilities. After graduation, Rebecca will begin employment at LSI, a simulation training company, where she will have the opportunity to work with both hardware and software.

Andrew Pagliari has been interested in computers from a very young age. He is studying to become a computer engineer at the University of Central Florida and is scheduled to graduate with a bachelor's degree on December 15, 2011. Computers have always been of interest to him, and throughout his educational career Andrew has found a great deal of enjoyment programming software. He feels that the possibilities and puzzles that programming has to offer make it a challenging and diverse field to be a part of. After graduation, Andrew plans on pursuing a career at an engineering firm such as Harris or Lockheed Martin to further challenge and educate himself in the engineering field.

Javier Vazquez is an electrical engineering senior at UCF graduating in Fall 2011. Javier has an interest in communications topics including antenna design, microwave engineering, and wireless technologies. In addition to the electrical aspects of communications, Javier is also interested in networking and other software-related topics pertaining to communications. After graduating, Javier is expecting to attend graduate school to obtain a master's degree in network security in order to acquire a balance between hardware and software in his academic career.

Summary

The LiteBike is the ultimate mode of alternative transportation for the urban rider. The lighting system allows for greater visibility for surrounding motorists, the security system ensures safety from bike thieves, and the mobile application helps the rider track his or her routes around the city along with controlling the lighting system. And to top it all off, the bicycle generates its own power via generator on the tire.

Features

The lighting system has four parts: a headlight, taillight, front and rear turn signals, and a frame lighting system. The taillight takes the form of three adjacent LED matrices that have the capability of displaying both a brake light and rear turn signals as shown below.


Turn signals and brake lights operate simultaneously.

The frame of the bike is lined with electroluminescent wire as shown in the overall schematic above. The user has the option of selecting which colors he or she would like to light up via mobile application. Switches for the turn signals, headlight and brake are mounted on the handlebars as shown below.

The LiteBike is armed with a sophisticated multi-layered security system. The first layer of defense is the Lock Tampering Detection System that detects if the chain lock of the bicycle has been cut. Should a thief attempt to steal the bike, the alarm system will be triggered as shown below. The second layer of security is composed of the Theft Detection System. If the bike is moved from its locked location, the user will be notified via SMS message. Once the bike is stolen, the GSM module will send the user the bike’s current GPS coordinates so that it may be recovered.

The mobile application displays a number of statistics about the bike and interfaces with both the lighting and security system. The user also has the capability of creating and editing routes through the mobile application. And to power the whole system, a generator is mounted to the tire and connected to a lithium ion battery.