Real-time motorway traffic flow data transmitted at rates of 1Gbyte/s from an aerial platform could be operating in two years if a project at German aerospace centre DLR succeeds. Trials have begun to test camera and data transmission technologies using a Zeppelin airship, a police helicopter and a light aircraft.
To achieve 1Gbyte/s rates, the DLR's researchers must overcome problems maintaining an optical laser link with a ground station , as well as digital imagery processing capabilities. In collaboration with German automobile association ADAC, a DLR Cessna equipped with digital cameras has been monitoring the Munich-Salzburg motorway. So far a picture generated from three 16 megapixel Canon cameras can provide data on an area of around 7 x 20km (4 x 12 miles) with high enough resolution to determine traffic levels.
"In two years we hope to have a real-time system," says the project's data processing and flight demonstration leader Peter Reinartz. The system could also be used to calculate the speed of vehicles.
Source: Flight International
