UMD system detects dangerous roads

A researcher team from the University of Minnesota at Duluth (UMD) has developed a system to detect snow and ice on road and bridge surfaces, in order to improve safety on potentially hazardous winter roadways. The system, which was revealed at an ITS Institute Advanced Transportation Technologies seminar, was designed to be inexpensive, versatile, and easily deployable in almost any location. It is hoped that the real-time information collected by the system will be used to warn motorists about unsafe conditions or trigger deicing operations by DOT maintenance crews. The system consists of an array of passive, puck-shaped sensors installed directly in the road or bridge surface. All sensors in a given area are connected to a common local data acquisition system that wirelessly transmits data back to a central processing system. The sensors and acquisition system can be powered by solar panels, making the system ideal for deployment in remote locations.

The detection system uses time domain reflectometry to acquire dielectric relaxation spectroscopy data, which is a technology that has previously been used to determine moisture content in soil, optimize water delivery to agricultural fields, and identify faults in high-speed electronic circuits. Each individual sensor sends out an electric pulse and collects data on how the material surrounding the sensor reflects that pulse. A material’s response to the electric field changes, depending on its temperature and state; so ice, water, and air all react differently. The processing system can determine whether the roadway surface contains ice, water, deicing chemicals, or nothing at all, by comparing the collected data to baseline measurements for a variety of materials. Research team leader, Professor John Evans, said, “We ultimately use this very complex information to determine a simple response: Is the roadway safe or unsafe? When the system detects ice or other dangerous conditions, it could trigger electronic signs that alert drivers. It could also send information to maintenance crews or plow operators pinpointing where deicing is needed.”

27 July 2012