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access icon free LADAR-based collision warning sensor to prevent over-height vehicle bridge hits

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Received 02/09/2017, Accepted 05/04/2018, Revised 03/03/2018, Published 06/04/2018

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.

Inspec keywords: optical images; optical radar; road safety; optical sensors; object detection; optical information processing; intelligent transportation systems; image sensors

Other keywords: L-OHVDs; LADAR-based collision warning sensor; OH truck detection; transportation infrastructure safety; transportation infrastructure preservation; off-the-shelf components; cost-effective installation; over-height vehicle detection systems; safe stopping distance; over-height vehicle bridge hit prevention; tractor trailers; false alarms; height measurement; collision prediction; specific site requirements; installation costs; patent pending optical design

Subjects: Optical, image and video signal processing; Optical radar; Traffic engineering computing; Image sensors; Computer vision and image processing techniques

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