Smart roads: How intelligent surfaces can warn you of hazards round next bend

Smart roads: How intelligent surfaces can warn you of hazards round next bend

A Norwegian research project is testing how to use fiber optics to listen to the traffic on a road.

Norway's roads authority is working on ways of making driving safer by using live traffic information provided by the road surface itself.

A pilot intelligent transport system project in the high north, where roads are covered with snow and ice in winter, is testing a novel way of using optical-fiber cables. Instead of carrying data, the fiber works as a listening device to map passing traffic.

The Public Road Administration's (PRA) basic idea is that the light signal in the fiber is altered slightly by vibrations from passing vehicles.

Software can interpret those alterations as car activity on the road surface, and so the cable acts as a traffic sensor. The cable itself is microtrenched a couple of centimeters into the asphalt surface of the road.

Norway's roads authority is working on ways of making driving safer by using live traffic information provided by the road surface itself.

A pilot intelligent transport system project in the high north, where roads are covered with snow and ice in winter, is testing a novel way of using optical-fiber cables. Instead of carrying data, the fiber works as a listening device to map passing traffic.

The Public Road Administration's (PRA) basic idea is that the light signal in the fiber is altered slightly by vibrations from passing vehicles.

Software can interpret those alterations as car activity on the road surface, and so the cable acts as a traffic sensor. The cable itself is microtrenched a couple of centimeters into the asphalt surface of the road.

Read more : https://www.zdnet.com/article/smart-roads-how-intelligent-surfaces-can-warn-you-of-hazards-round-next-bend/