Sensor Networks for Monitoring Traffic

Abstract

Traffic surveillance is currently performed with inductive loop detectors and video cameras for the efficient management of public roads. This paper proposes an alternative traffic monitoring system using wireless sensor networks that offers high accuracy and lower cost compared. The system consists of two parts: wireless sensor network and access point. Traffic information is generated at the sensor nodes and then transferred to the access point over radio. Our prototype called Traffic-Dot achieves vehicle detection accuracy of 97 % and accurately measures speed with a node pair. The communication protocol PEDAMACS (Power Efficient and Delay Aware Medium Access Protocol for Sensor Networks) is shown to increase the lifetime of the system up to several years while still guaranteeing the timely arrival of information from the sensor nodes to the access point. 1