The NOVUS solution, trialled on the busy Eastern Road in Portsmouth, consists of a multi lane radar detector, the NOVUS M64 roadside data processor unit and a cloud hosted back office.
The Innovate UK-funded project recognised the innovative approach to the collection of traffic data by radar which could also act as a junction loop emulation detector offering inputs to other traffic systems such as MOVA and SCOOT. NOVUS can be offered as an ‘after market’ add-on where the SVS smartmicro radars are already installed for loop emulation at traffic junctions thus adding tremendous value to the customer.
NOVUS works across up to six traffic lanes and can collect data on count, speed, classification, gap, headway and XY data for each individual lane. The data is stored locally on the M64 and can be downloaded to a back-office dashboard for viewing and/or downloaded as .xml or .csv files.
Commenting on the road trial Peter Eccleson, MD of Smart Video and Sensing said, “This first road trial exceeded my expectations. We literally have to complete some fine tuning of the software to have a really powerful product which will offer great value to the traffic market.”
He went on to compliment his development team for delivering ahead of the scheduled programme. “There will be more trials of NOVUS over the coming weeks and will undertake a targeted customer feedback exercise to ensure we have all of the information in the format which the clients require. We will also offer a JSON interface to allow clients to integrate NOVUS into their existing traffic data systems if they so desire.”
The 24Ghz smartmicro radar is at the heart of the system for multi-lane, multi-object tracking. It measures range, radial speed, horizontal and vertical angle, reflectivity and more parameters of multiple stationary and moving targets simultaneously. It is capable of high definition (4D/HD), where HD resolution means that the sensor can separate objects by speed and distance to the sensor. Pedestrians and bicycles can also be detected.
Another plus is that the low power sensor is almost unaffected by weather, temperature and lighting conditions.
