Impacts by over‐height (OH) vehicles on bridges, commonly known as ‘bridge hits’, cause significant risk to safety and preservation of transportation infrastructure in the USA. Currently, available over‐height vehicle detection systems (OHVDs) have specific site requirements, extremely high installation costs, and propensity for false alarms, which limit their field deployment to few locations. This study describes a new, enhanced LADAR‐based OHVDs (L‐OHVDs), which can be installed on the face of a structure to be protected and can measure the height of an approaching vehicle before the safe stopping distance from the structure. Built using off‐the‐shelf components and a patent pending optical design, it exhibits enhanced features like vehicle detection, actual height measurement, and collision prediction with no reported false alarms. The developed prototype has a detection range of 220 ft with height measurement accuracy (±0.66 inches) that is better than currently available OHVDs. This system has exceptional precision and is well suited to detect OH trucks and tractor trailers approaching a low vertical clearance bridge. With superior performance and cost‐effective installation, the proposed L‐OHVDs has the potential to reduce occurrences of ‘bridge hits’, thereby limiting consequences such as congestion and damages to bridge while sustaining safety of motorists.
LADAR‐based collision warning sensor to prevent over‐height vehicle bridge hits
IET Intelligent Transport Systems ; 12 , 7 ; 689-695
2018-09-01
7 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
optical images , image sensors , over‐height vehicle detection systems , cost‐effective installation , transportation infrastructure preservation , road safety , object detection , optical sensors , false alarms , transportation infrastructure safety , off‐the‐shelf components , OH truck detection , safe stopping distance , LADAR‐based collision warning sensor , over‐height vehicle bridge hit prevention , optical information processing , specific site requirements , collision prediction , L‐OHVDs , height measurement , tractor trailers , optical radar , patent pending optical design , installation costs , intelligent transportation systems
LADAR-based collision warning sensor to prevent over-height vehicle bridge hits
IET | 2018
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