1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to monitoring roadways through a wireless sensor network and more particularly relates to an apparatus, system, and method for integrated ultrasonic traffic flow and roadway flood monitoring. The system can include ultrasound rangefinders and/or remote infrared temperature sensors for monitoring traffic flow, flood water conditions, or both.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current traffic monitoring or flood monitoring systems are dedicated and are only used for one application. Further, there are no real time urban flood monitoring systems which exist to date. Existing flood monitoring systems only measure water levels in rivers or lakes and existing traffic monitoring systems only measure traffic. This lack of urban flood monitoring leaves urban settings at a disadvantage for sensing and reacting to flooding situations, such as flash floods. Emergency response would benefit from information relating both to the flood and traffic information. Such information would lead to quicker response times for emergency personnel and to quicker evacuation of non-emergency personnel from flooded areas.
Traditional sensor-network based systems have several drawbacks, first they can only monitor floods arising from surrounding rivers (for instance flash floods cannot be monitored using traditional systems). Additionally, while these sensor-network based systems can predict when a river will start to flood the surrounding urban areas, they cannot track the evolution of the flood itself. Satellite based flood monitoring systems also have disadvantages. They do not have real time capabilities, they are image-based, and they can only assess the extension of the flood after the clouds have dissipated, i.e. hours or more after the flood started.