A moving vehicle height monitoring sensor system for overheight impact avoidance

Abstract

Bridges, overpasses, and road construction sites with reduced vertical clearance lead to collision threats from crossing vehicles that exceed their clearance due to their inherent height or improper loading. These accidents can pose slight or severe physical damage to property and, pri-marily, damage to involved individuals in these vehicles or their affected components (i.e., collateral damage around and above an overpass or bridge). Furthermore, the resulting consequences may also incur fatalities, injuries, structural damages, and monetary damages. It has severely impacted the repair and/or replacement costs of the affected structures. Such accidents and consequences have been observed at a national level and could be reduced with a proper implementation of an overheight sensing system to prevent them from happening as often. This paper introduces the design, prototype, and implementation of a low power sensor network to monitor and characterize vehicle height and other characteristics in real time, thus alerting overheight vehicles well in advance of a possible collision.