A real-time traffic monitoring based on wireless sensor network technologies

Non intrusive systems-based traffic monitoring, is a paradigm for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Real time systems capable of providing prompt information, like loop detectors, laser/radar systems and video cameras, were proposed in the past but they are affected by some straits in deployment. In this paper a Traffic Monitoring Wireless Sensor Network system (TM-WSN), based on acoustic arrays and powered by effective post-processing, is proposed. The system is composed by an hierarchical scheme of Master Nodes and Sensor Nodes linked with a multi-hop protocol. Key features are traffic monitoring and queue detection to be performed in real-time at unprecedented space scale.