Smartmicro has recently developed a new ingenious family of high performance Radars, determining position, speed vector and lane index of multiple traffic objects even in complex situations. Objects can be detected by the Radar no matter if stationary or moving. In the picture below, to give an example, one Radar is used to cover four lanes simultaneously.

Cost Efficiency - one single sensor may replace up to eight loop detectors, is maintenance free and features WiFi interface (on request) - no need to for extra communication cables anymore.

Demo Video Classification (AVI, 67MB).

Smartmicro Traffic Radars can be applied for

• Intersection monitoring - replacement of loop detectors.
• Traffic Management - controlling traffic lights.
• Multi-lane free flow tolling (MLFF).
• Traffic counting, classification, speed measurement and traffic statistics.

We have concentrated for this family of Radars on very demanding applications where

a) the detection range should be very high (example: ~100m when placing the Radar behind the crossroads on a traffic lights pole), and many lanes must be covered by one single sensor,
b) the speed measurement must be very precise and at low latency,
c) the speed measurement shall be carried out only in a pre-defined range gate and/or lane.

We have included tracking algorithms in our radar systems. This allows the precise estimation of additional target data which can not be directly measured, like for instance the acceleration.

Providing this oustanding performance, one Radar may replace up to two conventional loop detectors per lane (i.e. on a four lane road eight loop detectors can be replaced by one Radar device). In addition to that, the microwave technology has many more advantages:

• Low installation cost.
• Zero maintenance cost.
• Long lifetime.
• All weather operation, high availability.
• Combination with cameras possible (in network).
• Self calibration / self diagnostics on board (i.e. sensor blind etc.)
• Self alignment available.
• Sensors can be mounted invisibly behind plastic or other, nonconductive material.

Sensor Communication:
Through a proprietary digital interface, a CAN or Ethernet (electrical or fibre channel) based communication between all sensors and one or more traffic control processors is established. Sensor fusion and traffic control / crossroads control processing may be located centrally. A duplex WiFi (820.11g) link Radar sensor - traffic controller is availble on request.