LUFTCAR (www.luftcar.com) is developing autonomous air and road eVTOL vehicle, capable of flying up to 3000 ft. Do we have sensors that can help with landing in safe places, by reading the objects on the terrain and discerning between them?
Dr. Terry Yang: Farzana’s research goes over the detection of pedestrians so we are not quite sure what sensor that could help. The lighter one could be a popular option because we know a lot of autonomous road vehicles could actually use the lighter sensors.
Would love to know who I should contact in UT for further questions.
Dr. Terry Yang: Dr. Taylor Li would be the best person to contact. Email: Taylor.Li@uta.edu. Homepage: https://actionlab.uta.edu
When installed in the field, what kind of maintenance do LIDAR sensors require?
Dr. Terry Yang: We need the antennas for the power system and every half year or one year we have to do some recalibration of the senor to make sure the detection can be accurate.
What is the height of those sensors? Any interference among different sensors? How to handle the fusion of multiple LIDAR?
Dr. Terry Yang: So, the height of the sensor is actually calculated based on the view of the intersection. So that will be case by case. The fusion of the multiple LIDAR is done by the vendor of the lighter company. They actually provide the perception and the algorithm to fuse the multiple sensors.
How many such detetctors are needed per intersection, one per quadrant?
Dr. Terry Yang: In this case we will need 40 detectors for 4 approaching intersections. That means one detector per approach.
What differences in operations using LIDAR vs video cameras?
Dr. Terry Yang: LIDAR are using different technologies. Comparing the LIDAR to video, the LIDAR is much more reliable because video camera can be affected by the light condition, weather condition, or shading on the road. The LIDAR basically analysis the different information which is more reliable. With this, the LIDAR is more expensive.
How to power these LIDARs? Connect to a central power source or install distributed one for each individual sensor?
Dr. Terry Yang: The LIDAR is connected to the signal cabinet. So, it actually using the power from the signal cabinet to support the LIDARs.
How would this system deal with a bus stop on the corner where the waiting area for the bus stop and the signal overlap?
Dr. Terry Yang: I believe the current system does not have ability to deal with such case. At the initial stage, the system can only deal with the case that don’t have the interference of the bus stop.
Does the sensor detect pressure? Battery life of the system? Have you looked into wireless LIDAR sensors?
Dr. Terry Yang: The sensor does not detect pressure. I don’t believe there is any batter life there as they are connected to the signal cabinet. Kindly, we do not look at the wireless LIDAR sensors.
Can these detectors completely eliminate the need for push button ped detectors at the intersections, or do these best work as a complementary system to the traditional detectors?
Dr. Terry Yang: The system does not have the capability to eliminate the need for push button, but there is a definite potential to do so with integration of other sensors. And again, this can work as complimentary system to the traditional detectors.
What is the propagation delay with the Live Demo system to the traffic management center?
Dr. Terry Yang: They are collecting data every 5 minutes to transmit the data to the fuse to the sensor.
Have LIDAR systems been used to notify drivers approaching severe blind curves that there are bikes/pedestrians present?
Dr. Terry Yang: So currently the system does not have the capability, but we are bringing this LIDAR system to Utah, and we have a recently funded project by Utah to implement that. In that project we are going to integrate the whole system with connected vehicle system. Then we can notify the drivers by the connected vehicle information so hopefully we can see some future work over there.
Are these Infrared cameras for pole mounting or for vehicle mounting?
Keping Zhang: Infrared cameras are for pole mounting. Thanks for asking.
Are Rails for rail tracks made of a standard (same) material all over the USA?
Peter Zhu: Thanks for your question. Rails are generally made of standard materials with variations of the amount of carbon. And the networks will need to gradually replace existing rails depending on the year of service and wear conditions. So, there can be a good variations of material design within a network.
United States Department of Transportation
