Keeping Traffic Moving
Millions of dollars are being invested in research to control traffic and minimize delay on the Nation’s streets and highways. The success of control depends significantly on the performance of detectors. In Texas, as in the rest of the Nation, the most common detector is based on an inductive loop, i.e. a loop of wire buried in the pavement that senses when traffic passes over it. An important challenge for this type of detector is to achieve sufficient sensitivity to detect motorcycles, high-bedded trucks and even bicycles, while remaining insensitive to the influence of cars, trucks, or busses in adjacent lanes.
With funding from the Texas Department of Transportation, a team from the Center for Electromechanics and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments has developed a simulation package that permits computer-based evaluation of loop performance. The team members are Vincent Petit, Balaji Sathyamangalam, Mack Grady, and Bob Hebner. The heart of this simulation is a set of experimentally verified models of the magnetic interaction between vehicles and loops. The simulation permits the traffic engineer to assess, prior to cutting pavement and installing an inductive loop, how a specific loop geometry will react to both in-lane and adjacent-lane traffic. Use of this model allows cost-effective selection of optimum loop geometry.
A report on this work will be presented at the Texas Department of Transportation Research Management Committee Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, on November 5, 2001.
For further information, please contact Dr. Robert Hebner.
Government Activity to Increase Benefits from the Global Standards System
Dr. Robert Hebner, Director, is presenting a paper titled "Government Activity to Increase Benefits from the Global Standards System". This paper, which was prepared in collaboration with Roger Marks of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, explores how the growth of global trade is putting pressure on the voluntary standards systems used around the world. Both governments and industry are making efforts to evolve the standards system into one that is more responsive to the needs of the global economy while at the same time trying to strengthen local industry. The paper will be presented at the 2nd IEEE Conference on Standardization and Innovation on Information Technology, in Boulder, CO, October 3 – 6, 2001.
For further information, please contact Dr. Robert Hebner.
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Research into Electric Insulating Materials
The development of the electric power industry and the telecommunications industry had a profound influence on research into dielectrics and electrical insulation for the past century. The maturation of those industries resulted in part from synergistic roles played by industrial research and government research. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena (CEIDP) is hosting a special session devoted to NIST research. The organizers invited Dr. Robert Hebner to summarize some of the mutual programs that have contributed to advances in electric power and telecommunications. The paper is titled, "NIST and the CEIDP – Working Together to Advance Technology" and will be presented at the 2001 CEIDP, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. The conference is to be held October 14 – 17, 2001.
For further information, please contact Dr. Robert Hebner.
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