Motorways can present a risk to life under certain circumstances, such as when pedestrians stray onto the carriageways or when a driver mistakenly goes in the wrong direction by entering on to an exit slip road.
Incidents are usually reported over the telephone by the public but this often takes many minutes and the information may be vague or inaccurate. This prevents operators and police from making quick decisions about where to dispatch a response team, what warning signs to set and which sections of road to close. There is a need for a system that rapidly and reliably reports the exact location of all hazards to allow a proportionate response to ensure the safety of all road users is be maintained and secondary incidents are avoided. Although stopped vehicles are the main source of incidents on highways, there are many other major risks including pedestrians, wildlife, debris and even vehicles using the wrong carriageway, all of which need to be detected too.
Our solution: SVR-500IS
Our Automatic Incident Detection (AID) solution, the SVR-500IS, uses radar to rapidly detect multiple road hazards including wrong-direction drivers, debris, stopped vehicles, pedestrians, wildlife incursions and obstructions. This solution gives emergency services the fastest response to deal with all types of road hazard and incidents. It controls cameras automatically to zoom onto the area for visual assessment. The radar interfaces easily with other systems to alert other motorists, avoiding secondary incidents in the same area. Our unique radar is a fraction of the overall cost when compared to of the large numbers of relatively short-range equipment based on other technologies that would otherwise need be used instead.
Key benefits
Unique concept
The system is truly unique, using an innovative frequency and modulation scheme unlike any other. While some other radars may appear to come close in functionality, for example vehicle-mounted radars, in reality the processing they require is a fraction of that required in a roadside system that has to scan through the full 360 degrees, not just a narrow region ahead of a single vehicle. Our system avoids the unacceptably large cost increase due to the extreme amount of processing necessary when other well-known techniques are utilised for wider coverage areas. This allows us to offer cutting-edge performance while remaining commercially attractive.
Instant speed measurement
Our solution, with its revolutionary instantaneous speed detection technique measures the speed of all vehicles and objects within a single scan only. This instantly shows not only the speed, but also the direction of travel, either toward or away from the radar, allowing for instant and accurate wrong-direction driver detection. Most other radars rely upon multiple sequential measurements to measure speed, which degrades as traffic densities increase and vehicles can be obscured more frequently. Our solution avoids the use of complicated multiple-hypothesis tracking (MHT) algorithms that can be prone to errors in real world conditions. It also allows the nature of movements to be detected, thereby discriminating reliably between slow moving vehicles and pedestrians.
Total coverage
The SVR-500IS radar uses our unique instantaneous speed technology to scan all road lanes over a distance of 500 metres to detect all hazards within the 360-degree field of view. It can be mounted high to mitigate obscuration issues from tall vehicles. The specially designed antennas are optimised to simultaneously see distant vehicles as well as very close-in vehicles almost directly underneath the radar, even when mounted very high. It can be configured to monitor all road lanes, slip roads and hard shoulders within the field of view.
Visual confirmation
Upon detection, the SVR-500IS controls a nearby camera to zoom onto the hazard automatically to provide visual confirmation of the nature of the incident. This capability improves the situational awareness of operators and leads to a response that is appropriate for each incident.
Trials
A trial system has been produced and tested on a major British road with superb results. We can work with any user who has a real requirement for a substantial quantity of such radars, in which case we would be delighted to undertake joint trials to prove the viability of the solution for their requirements.