by Nick Camper
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.–The Arkansas Senate votes today on a bill that would begin pulling in funds to support a new highway infrastructure.
The proposal was presented last week by Governor Asa Hutchinson and other lawmakers. The goal is to achieve a budget of $300 million for highway spending.
Here at the University of Arkansas, researchers in the engineering field are working with technology that could help governments and businesses create a more efficient transportation system.
“We’re gathering data to support long range transportation planning decisions,” said Sarah Hernandez, the Assistant Professor leading a group of undergrads and graduate students in a study on the characteristics and traffic flow of big trucks on the highway.
The research group uses a single beam technology called a LIDAR Sensor. Information is collected as trucks drive by on the highways.
“It’ll reflect off the truck and go back to the sensor, and based off the travel time of the light beam you can figure out how far away the vehicle is,” said Collin Burris, an undergrad who works on the hardware and software of the technology.
Distance is only part of the data collecting process. Each beam hits different locations on the truck which is then sent back to the sensor and recorded. From there, Collin is able to take the information and download it to a system that determines what type of truck is being analyzed.
Determining the different types of trucks helps researchers develop a highway system that best serves certain industries here in Arkansas.
With a cost of only $100, wide-scale employment of these devices is very practical. Hernandez said the more monitoring sensors on the roads, the easier it is to study the traffic flows. This leads to more efficient project planning.
“With very fixed and limited budgets you know which projects should they prioritize over others,” Hernandez said