Photonics on the road to safer driving

In the Netherlands, by midyear they expect to have installed the first of several innovations that will lead to better highway safety and energy efficiency, Smart Planet has reported. Lights that are activated by passing cars, special lanes for charging electric vehicles while they’re moving, and temperature-responsive road paint that alerts drivers to freezing conditions are just a few of the features of this highway of the future. Watch the video:

Two companies, Studio Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure, came up with the highway ideas. The luminous road markings and temperature indicating road will be installed first, and the other things shown in the video will take longer.

Any one of these ideas would be a welcome enhancement, but taken together, an exciting new driving environment will be created beginning this summer in Holland’s Brabant province. By the way, this comes from the country that last year brought us heated bike lanes for icy streets.

Technology to monitor the health of bridges and other highway structures is getting smarter all the time, too. A conference at SPIE Smart Structres and Nondestructive Evaluation on sensors and other technologies to monitor the health of bridges, roads, and runways will start with keynote talks on fiber-optic and thin-film sensors that can be built into structures to monitor the effects of typhoons, earthquakes, and other damaging events.

And vehicles themselves are increasingly fitted with photonics technology to enhance safety, from LED headlamps, MEMS tire pressure systems, and laser ignition systems, to back-up cameras , night vision and head-up displays, and much more.

Comments

Ten Ways to Celebrate the first International Day of Light

The first International Day of Light (IDL) is less than a month away. A global initiative highlighting the importance of light and light-based technologies, communities around the world are planning events celebrating IDL on 16 May. First Place Winner of the 2017 SPIE IDL Photo Contest SPIE will participate in outreach events local to our community in Bellingham, Washington, attend the inauguration in Paris, France, and host an IDL reception for our conference attendees at SPIE Optical Systems Design in Frankfurt, Germany taking place May 14-17. SPIE is also supporting local events in 13 different communities from the US to India, Canada to South Africa, who were awarded SPIE IDL Micro Grants to create activities that highlight the critical role light plays in our daily lives. Do you need some ideas on how to show your appreciation of light on the 16th? Here is our top ten list of ways you can celebrate IDL 2018: 1. Throw a Celebration: Light up your party with ligh...

#FacesofPhotonics: NASA Intern Elaine Stewart

MIRROR, MIRROR: Elaine with the JWST at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland Meet Elaine Stewart: chemical engineering student, world-traveler, intern at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and this week's SPIE Face of Photonics. Elaine is fascinated by space exploration and how optics impacts our ability to "study distant stars that have never been seen before." Her research has taken her around the world -- from Bochum, Germany, where she studied material science and engineering at Ruhr-Universität, to Houston, Texas, to work on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) while it was under cryogenic vacuum chamber testing, to Melbourne, Australia, where she studied biochemical and product engineering at the University of Melbourne in 2017. And, when she's not busy traversing the globe, she is focusing on graduating from the University of Delaware in 2019 with a Bachelor's in Chemical Engineering. Elaine makes a point of remaining an active...

Cataract surgery: misnomer?

On left, the patient’s left eye has no cataract and all structures are visible. On right, retinal image from fundus camera confirms the presence of a cataract. (From Choi, Hjelmstad, Taibl, and Sayegh, SPIE Proc. 85671Y , 2013) Article by guest blogger Roger S. Reiss , SPIE Fellow and recipient of the 2000 SPIE President's Award. Reiss was the original Ad Hoc Chair of SPIE Optomechanical Working Group. He manages the LinkedIn Group “ Photonic Engineering and Photonic Instruments .” The human eye and its interface with the human brain fit the definition of an "instrument system." The human eye by itself is also an instrument by definition. After the invention of the microscope and the telescope, the human eye was the first and only detector for hundreds of years, only to be supplemented and in most cases supplanted by an electro-optical detector of various configurations. The evolution of the eye has been and still is a mystery. In National Geogr...

Photonics for a Better World

Search This Blog