Wi-ROAD project
Traffic congestion is one of the most important and urgent problems of industrialized countries. The demand for mobility is continuously increasing, causing delays, accidents, pollution and huge costs to the collectivity. The aim of this project is to exploit the latest advances in the ICT area, specifically in sensing, processing and communication technologies, so as to improve the efficiency of traffic management systems. The main objective will be the development of a wide-scale and dense monitoring system for measurement, modelling and control of traffic flows.
Wireless sensors (WS) for traffic monitoring are small devices (embedded on the pavement) that are equipped with a magneto-resistive sensor for traffic detection, a processor, a battery (that can last several years), a flash memory, and a low-power radio transceiver for communicating with each other. Dimensions in the order of few centimetres allow for an easy installation below the road surface and for dense deployments. Wireless connectivity reduces the high cabling/maintenance cost of conventional monitoring systems and makes the acquisition structure more flexible. A WSN deployment with sensors every 100-200m (or down to 50m), combined with flexible and scalable mesh-type connectivity, can provide not only accurate traffic information but also a virtual (wireless) cabling of the road infrastructure that can be used for road monitoring and maintenance. This smart-road system has the potential to revolutionize the traffic management industry and to enable a myriad of services that can greatly improve the efficiency of mobility systems. In future transportation systems with inter-vehicle and road-to-vehicle communications, the WSN will make the road capable of sensing its own traffic/weather/safety conditions, exchange information with passing vehicles, with TMCs and with users connected through the internet.
This project will investigate the development of a large-scale, real-time and dense wireless monitoring network (WMN) for traffic management from a broad interdisciplinary perspective, involving wireless communications, information science, signal processing and applied mathematic expertises. The research team has established agreements to work in cooperation with a manufacturing industry that will make available the know-how on wireless devices' customization and manufacturing.
