Portable Cellular Wireless Mesh Sensor Network for Vehicle Tracking in an Intersection

Abstract

This report describes the result of a research project that developed an automatic, portable vehicle tracking system that can count the vehicle travel trajectories in an intersection. Using a cellular wireless mesh sensor network (WMSN), wireless sensor nodes are placed in the middle of traffic lanes in the intersection to collect the data. Each node consists of an anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) circuit for detecting vehicles, a PAN4570 Radio Communications Module (RCM), and a lithium-ion rechargeable battery. When a vehicle travels over a wireless node, a detection occurs and a timestamp is recorded by the node and sent to the WMSN coordinator. The coordinator is responsible for logging the vehicle detections recorded by every node in the WMSN. From this logged data, a vehicle tracking algorithm that has been developed tracks the trajectories of the vehicles through the intersection and also records a total vehicle count of the intersection. The system performance was evaluated through both intersection simulations and real data collection. The details on the system component design, implementation, experimental results, and analysis are described.