A smart traffic monitoring system based on cement-based piezoelectric transducers which can monitor the traffic flow, vehicle speed and vehicle weight has been developed in this study. The main contributions of this study are: 1. an equation relating the vehicle velocity and the output of the transducer is derived and solved; and 2. an equation considering the current leakage in the output of the transducer is resolved. As a result, the accuracy and reliability of the monitoring system have been greatly improved. Compared with the traditional method, static or quasi-static state, the new traffic monitoring system can achieve the function of Weigh-in-motion with high accuracy. The smart traffic monitoring system can automatically analyze the velocity and weight of the moving vehic...[ Read more ]

A smart traffic monitoring system based on cement-based piezoelectric transducers which can monitor the traffic flow, vehicle speed and vehicle weight has been developed in this study. The main contributions of this study are: 1. an equation relating the vehicle velocity and the output of the transducer is derived and solved; and 2. an equation considering the current leakage in the output of the transducer is resolved. As a result, the accuracy and reliability of the monitoring system have been greatly improved. Compared with the traditional method, static or quasi-static state, the new traffic monitoring system can achieve the function of Weigh-in-motion with high accuracy. The smart traffic monitoring system can automatically analyze the velocity and weight of the moving vehicles.

A trial system is set up in Nansha, Guangdong. The on-site tested results show that in the velocity range from 20km/h to 70km/h, the errors of the calculated total vehicle weight of both the 2-axle, 10t vehicle and the 2-axle, 6.8t vehicle are lower than 15%.

The work in this thesis opens a new direction for the application of cement-based piezoelectric composites in the field of smart traffic monitoring. The materials and techniques, developed in this work, have a great potential in real application of the on-site monitoring.