A Distributed Measurement System for the Evaluation of the Safety State in Highway Tunnels

This paper presents a distributed smart system for evaluating the safety state in highway tunnels. This system will alert all vehicles passing trough the monitored tunnel that a dangerous state has been detected, such as a fire or the presence of injurious vapors which might possibly ignite. The system implements original and innovative data fusion algorithms in two-stages, based on the creation of decisional fuzzy rules built on linguistic variables in presence of measures affected by uncertainty. The distributed network of sensing devices and thermal vision system monitor continuously the tunnel environment, permitting extraction of information on the safety state of tunnel. If the system finds an effective anomaly, and the sensors and the cameras are working accurately, a message is sent to inform the drivers about the exact location of the danger. In fact, by using the RF technology of communication, the vehicle is able to recognize its own position within the tunnel and the distance separating it from the critical area detected.