Road surface condition detection utilizing resonance frequency and optical technologies

Abstract With the booming development of road network and intelligent transportation systems, road surface condition information becomes more and more valuable in traffic accident prevention and route optimization. Although some existing embedded detectors have been providing road condition data in some regions, they are not functional enough in either complex condition recognition or film thickness measurement. This paper introduces a dual-sensor based road condition detector for six surface conditions with ice and water film measurement capability. The reflection type optical sensor and the piezoelectric sensor utilizing resonance technology are integrated in the detector. The finite element analysis was carried out to study the amplitude frequency response characteristics of the piezoelectric sensor and the optical power calculation model based on Fresnel Reflection was built to evaluate the output voltage of the optical sensor in different conditions. Several experiments were done to calibrate the detector and validate its performance. The results indicated that all of the 353 validation data points were correctly sorted and the measurement upper limit of the ice and water film was above 5 mm with accuracy better than 0.5 mm.