Superpedestrian, the Cambridge, MA-based MIT spin-off engineering firm behind the LINK shared e-scooter, this week unveiled a breakthrough active safety system called Pedestrian Defense. The system not only detects unsafe behaviors like riding on sidewalks but also stops them in real-time to prevent serious injuries. The Pedestrian Defense capabilities promise to resolve significant challenges for the micromobility industry that have led many cities to restrict, sanction, and even ban shared e-scooters.
The safety breakthrough is made possible through the company’s acquisition of micromobility-safety startup Navmatic in June and the application of its patented Super Fusion technology, which combines multiple sources of real-time vehicle dynamics data to yield the most accurate, practical, and reliable fleet positioning and vehicle control available.
Technology for riders, pedestrians, policymakers
By integrating Navmatic’s Super Fusion technology into Superpedestrian’s existing Vehicle Intelligence (VI) platform, Pedestrian Defense ensures that unsafe behaviors like sidewalk riding, wrong-way riding, aggressive swerving, and repeated hard braking are detected then immediately corrected by slowing or safely stopping the scooter. The company says that the system makes it the only micromobility provider that can reliably detect and correct unsafe rider behavior in real-time and at scale across an entire fleet.
The technology integration also allows Superpedestrian to translate sensor data into other interventions, from direct notifications and incentives for riders to comprehensive dashboards for policymakers that show safety trends and illustrate locations prone to unsafe behavior or increased chance of a crash. Data sharing has been another high-level desire of local governments. Influencing more than behavior, data from the Pedestrian Defense system can be put to work to improve infrastructure too, helping cities target locations that may need maintenance or safety upgrades.
“Superpedestrian has cracked the code to one of this industry’s biggest challenges,” said Assaf Biderman, CEO & Founder of Superpedestrian. “Our e-scooter is unique because it has the computing power and sensors that Navmatic’s Super Fusion needs in order to operate in the field. Now, we can scale Pedestrian Defense across our entire fleet and offer riders and cities something no other company has—a real-time solution to aggressive and unlawful riding.”
“We’ve spent years at Navmatic developing the most-fine-grained sensor-fusion and rider-behavior detection out there,” said Boaz Mamo, CEO & Founder of Navmatic. “With Superpedestrian’s high-quality hardware and smart system operation, we can detect how riders behave, make real-time interventions, and give cities actionable insight into the safety of their streets. This is what cities really need to solve the problems associated with e-scooters, and our team is the first and only one to achieve it.”
Specifically, the Pedestrian Defense active safety system can detect a range of dangerous behavior such as riding on the sidewalk, riding the wrong way down a one-way street, aggressive swerving, and repeated hard braking. The system can alert riders to violating rules with lights and audible notifications on the vehicle, and correct bad behavior by immediately slowing or safely stopping a ride autonomously. The solution can educate riders with customized SMS alerts, in-app training, and incentives. It can inform cities with data and insights about safety conditions, including customized dashboards that identify locations with repeated errant behavior and generate collision reports that provide authorities with detailed information in the case of a crash.
At the end of each ride, riders will receive a safety rating that chronicles both unsafe and safe behaviors. This rating is used to deliver customized in-app and SMS safety training. As ride behavior improves, riders receive discounts on future rides. Chronically unsafe riders are not allowed to ride again.
The company is launching pilot demonstrations of Pedestrian Defense across the U.S. this month, with full LINK fleet applications beginning in Fall 2021.
Building the ‘Volvo of E-Scooters’
The roll-out is expected to burnish the safety credentials of Superpedestrian, the self-described “Volvo of E-Scooters.” The company’s mission is to help cities combat climate change, clean up air pollution, and reduce road deaths by providing safe, reliable, and community-centric services and technologies that re-center urban spaces around pedestrians. It is not only a leader in transportation robotics and human-scale mobility but also is a fully carbon-neutral business.
The company’s control center and test labs are located in Cambridge (near MIT and Harvard University), where it develops and tests vehicles/technologies and monitors live data from its global fleets. Spun out of MIT in 2013, it holds 40+ patents in artificial intelligence and electrified vehicle technologies. It launched a shared mobility division in 2020 using the shared e-scooter LINK.
Superpedestrian pitches itself as the only true tech company in an industry of service companies. Helping CEO Biderman lead the company’s developmental efforts are Graham Gullans; VP of Corporate & Business Development; William Knapp, VP of Operations; Avra van der Zee, VP of Strategy & Policy; Haya Douidri, VP of EMEA; Goss Nuzzo-Jones, VP of Software Engineering; and Eric Barber; VP of Hardware Engineering.
It has invested 8 years and $75 million to patent more than 30 electric vehicle technologies that have resulted in the only e-scooter with onboard intelligence, giving its LINK scooters a competitive advantage in safety and reliability. The company’s efforts are being rewarded by investors, with one of the latest announcements coming in December that it had secured financial backing from the Citi Impact Fund, OurCrowd, Winthrop Square Capital, and others as part of a new $60 million investment.
“Superpedestrian’s LINK fleet aims for the double bottom line we look for through the Citi Impact Fund, benefitting both communities and investors,” said Ed Skyler, Citi’s Executive Vice President for Global Public Affairs. “They’ve taken time to get the technology right, the growth has been sustainable and their product is profitable.”
“Superpedestrian’s dramatic technology lead in the scooter market is translating into business leadership,” added Jon Medved, OurCrowd CEO. “Because the platform is safer and smarter, LINK has better unit economics than any competitor.”
LINK’s maker says the e-scooter system’s record is unique in the industry, with no severe injuries, defects, lawsuits, or censures from cities—and the lowest vehicle loss rate of any operator. After expanding to 12 cities in 2020, Superpedestrian is now vying for permits in New York City and other major global cities.
The LINK e-scooter
From the outside, the LINK scooter looks like most other scooters, if a little more rugged, but inside it packs game-changing technology. The industry’s most efficient powertrain lets riders go farther—up to 61 mi (98 km)—on a single charge. Vehicles are built to last over 2500 rides, reducing waste for the planet. Its onboard intelligence is capable of autonomous maintenance and safety verification before every ride.
Each vehicle has five computers that act as an AI Mechanic, interfacing with 73 sensors, to monitor every component thousands of times per second and instantly capable of self-repairing many electronic systems. As of December, the onboard AI Mechanic has performed 84,500 autonomous repairs, ensuring vehicles are safe to ride.
This means that, unlike other micromobility companies that can spend days transporting vehicles in need of repair to warehouses for diagnostics and maintenance, Superpedestrian can resolve many issues autonomously in the field. Its e-scooters are always verified safe to ride, enabling the industry’s highest reliability, accessibility, and availability. LINK also has the industry’s only on-board geofence, which reacts within less than 1 s with enforcement to slow and stop a scooter from entering a no-ride zone, protecting pedestrians and keeping scooters off sidewalks.
