WO2002099201A1

WO2002099201A1 - Signalling apparatus

Info

Publication number: WO2002099201A1
Application number: PCT/GB2002/002396
Authority: WO
Inventors: Joseph Logan
Original assignee: Joseph Logan
Priority date: 2001-06-06
Filing date: 2002-06-06
Publication date: 2002-12-12
Also published as: GB0113695D0

Abstract

The present invention relates to signalling apparatus used to provide a continuous elongate carrier member (10) along a road surface or the like (20), the carrier member (10) having light producing elements (14); the carrier member (10) can be adapted with monitoring means (310, 410) which collects/transmits information about the surrounding environment. The carrier member (10) can change colour to advise of different weather, and traffic conditions ahead and at other situations; the monitoring means (310, 410) has data transmitting/collecting means (314, 414) which can be wirelessly connected to a remote device (316, 416), such as a computer on board a vehicle, or the Internet.

Description

Signalling Apparatus

The present invention relates to signalling apparatus used particularly, but not exclusively, to provide a continuous visible strip along a road such that users of the road can determine the upcoming path of the road, particularly at night. Additionally or alternatively, the signalling apparatus can contain means for indicating and or communicating information regarding the environmental conditions and traffic conditions around or between the signalling apparatus .

Conventional road indicators comprise a series of individual spaced apart reflective markers (known as "cats-eyes") . These "cats-eyes" are generally expensive to produce and install.

Conventional traffic monitors comprise an individual unit having data collecting means connected to two spaced apart wires traversing a road which a vehicle passes over. The speed of the vehicle and the number of vehicles which pass are recorded. According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided signalling apparatus comprising an elongate carrier member adapted to be placed along a desired path, the carrier member having distributed along its length a plurality of light producing elements to provide a visual signal along the length of said path.

Preferably, said light producing elements are distributed substantially equidistantly spaced along the length of the carrier member.

Preferably, said light producing elements are light reflective elements.

Alternatively, said light producing elements are light emitting elements.

Preferably, said light reflective elements are formed of a reflective material.

Alternatively, the light reflective elements are formed of a retro-reflective material.

Preferably, said light emitting elements are formed of a fluorescent material.

Preferably, said light emitting elements includes a fibre optic cable. Preferably, said light emitting elements includes a light source which propagates light through the fibre optic cable.

Preferably, the propagated light is coded by different colours.

Preferably, said signalling apparatus includes heating means.

According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided signalling apparatus comprising an elongate carrier member adapted to be placed along a desired path, the carrier member having a plurality of monitoring stations distributed along its length, each monitoring station having data transmitting/collecting means.

Preferably, at least one of said data transmitting/collecting means can pass data to other data transmitting/collecting means on said carrier member.

Preferably, at least one of said data transmitting/collecting means can pass data to a central unit.

Preferably, said data transmitting/collecting means transmits and collects data in the form of light pulses. Preferably, said data transmitting/collecting means transmits and collects data in the form of electrical pulses.

Preferably, said data transmitting/collecting means are interconnected by means of information carriers.

Preferably, said information carriers are fibre optic cables.

Alternatively, said information carriers are electrically conductive members.

Preferably, said data is passed by means of a modem.

Alternatively, said data is passed by means of wireless communication.

Preferably, said data is passed to a remote device.

Preferably, said remote device is a computer on board a vehicle.

Alternatively, said remote device is an Internet Service Provider or other globally accessible device.

Preferably, said path is a road for vehicles.

Alternatively, said path is an emergency exit route.

Preferably, said carrier member is transparent. Preferably, said signalling apparatus includes heating means.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figs la and lb illustrate the elongate carrier member of the present invention in cross-sectional and plan view respectively;

Fig. 2 illustrates the elongate carrier member in storage, prior to use, on a storage drum;

Fig. 3 illustrates a section of the elongate carrier member in a "flex" condition;

Fig. 4 is a schematic illustration of the "path" of light entering and being reflected/emitted from the elongate carrier member;

Fig. 5 is a schematic part detail cross- sectional view of a plurality of light producing elements distributed along the length of the elongate carrier member;

Fig. 6 is a schematic elevational view of a road vehicle approaching the elongate carrier member;

Figs. 7a and 7b illustrate a reinforced Bitumen Layer and a fabric reinforcement respectively; Fig. 8 illustrates the assembly of the elongate carrier, a bitumen strip and the reinforced bitumen layer;

Fig. 9 is a schematic end view of a second embodiment with temperature sensitive material;

Fig. 10 is a side view of a third embodiment of the present invention;

Figs. 11a and lib are a side view and end view respectively of a fourth embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 12 is a side view of a fifth embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 13 is a front view of a frost sensing device housed in the bitumen strip or remote from the signalling apparatus;

Figs. 14a and 14b are front views of non- integral and integral monitoring stations respectively;

Fig. 15 is a perspective view of an alternative frost sensing device; and

Fig. 16 is a front view of the signalling apparatus with a plurality of carrier members. Referring to the drawings, there is shown signalling apparatus which includes an elongate carrier member in the form of a generally cylindrical plastics transparent conduit 10 which is capable of "flexing" to a minimum radius of three metres (Fig. 3 illustrates the "flex" in the conduit 10) . The conduit 10 can be stored, prior to use, on a storage drum 11 (as seen in Fig. 2) . The storage drum 11 is generally 8 metres in diameter and can also be used to assist in the application of the conduit 10 to a surface.

Typically, the conduit 10 is applied to a road surface 20 but may be applied to any surface. It is preferable that the conduit 10 is applied to delineation lines on the road surface 20. It is more preferable that the conduit 10 is also applied to respective sides of the road surface 20.

The conduit 10 is approximately 15 or 20 mm in diameter and is generally in lengths of 50 or 100 metres, but not limited thereto.

In a first embodiment, the interior 12 of the conduit 10 is filled with a plurality of light producing elements 14 which are distributed (preferably evenly) along the length of the conduit 10.

The light producing elements 14 are in the form of reflective materials, retro-reflective materials or fluorescent materials. These materials are in the form of chips or particles.

The conduit 10 may be filled with only one type of material, or alternatively may be filled with any combination of these materials.

The purpose and function of the generally cylindrical form of the conduit 10 is to radiate/emit light in numerous directions. With reference to the fluorescent particles, these particles are fluorescent over all of their surface and may be of any shape.

The ratio of distribution of the particles within the conduit 10 is calculated to allow the best emission of light and surface reflection of light when light from a vehicle's headlights 15 (or any other light source) hits the conduit 10 and the particles within the conduit 10.

Generally, the particles are "held" in a carrier material and the density of the particles is 60-80% of the volume of the carrier material which fills the interior 12 of the conduit 10.

In use, a moving vehicle with the conduit 10 stored on the storage drum 11, unwinds the conduit 10 onto a road surface 20, the conduit then being fixed to the road surface 20 by way of a bitumen strip 21 and a strip of flexible fabric reinforced bitumen 22 (see Fig. 8) . Fig 7a shows the reinforced bitumen 22, and Fig. 7b shows the fabric reinforcement 24 used to reinforce the bitumen 22. The fabric is provided with cut out shapes 23 which allow the fabric to "flex" and is capable of bending to a radius of three metres .

The reinforced bitumen 22 is in strips of 50 or 100 metres in length, 50mm in breadth and 2mm in depth and is bonded to the road surface 20 by blow torch heating.

The conduit 10 is then bonded to the reinforced bitumen 22 by heating the bitumen strip 21 and applying the bitumen strip 21 to the reinforced bitumen 22 then applying the conduit 10 to the heated bitumen strip 21. The bitumen strip 21 is approximately 25mm in width, 10mm in depth and is as long as the length of the conduit 10.

Alternatively, the conduit 10 can be applied to the road surface 20 by an epoxy resin which is chemically activated to allow bonding to the road surface 20.

The epoxy resin is applied to the conduit 10 in manufacture and is chemically activated by a chemical bath (not shown) located proximate to the unwinding drum 11. The conduit 10 is then submerged in the chemical bath, thus activating the epoxy resin and allowing the conduit 10 to be applied to the road surface. Whilst the use described for the roadway indicator has been in relation to roadways for vehicles, it is to be understood that the present invention can also be used on other roadways such as paths or emergency exit routes, or for road diversions.

It is to be further understood that while the conduit has been specifically described as cylindrical, it may be of any shape or form.

In a second embodiment of the present invention, as shown in Fig. 9, there is provided a conduit 100 comprising a temperature sensitive interior 110.

The temperature sensitive interior 110 has material 112 which is adapted to reflect blue light when it is cold and reflect red light when it is warm. This serves to alert motorists to the potential hazard of frost and icy conditions on the road surface 20. It will be realised that alternative codification may be used.

In a third embodiment of the present invention, as shown in Fig. 10, there is provided a conduit 200 comprising a light emitting unit 210.

The light emitting unit 210 comprises a light source 212 which emits light down connected fibre optic cables 214.

The light emitting unit 210 is adapted to emit different colours of light through the fibre optic cables 214 to alert motorists to particular driving conditions at that location, or up ahead, for example :

Blue •= Frost or icy conditions, Red = Stationary traffic ahead or traffic jam or accident, Green = Safe driving conditions.

The light emitting source 212 is located proximate to an open end of the conduit 200. Alternatively, the light emitting source 212 may be housed within the conduit 200.

With modern cars being equipped with on board computers, a fourth embodiment, as shown in Fig 11, is provided with a conduit 300 comprising monitoring stations 310 with a light emitting unit 312 and data communication means 314 which allows data communication between the monitoring stations 310 and connectivity to and from a remote device 316.

The monitoring stations 310 are positioned at intermediary points along the conduit 300.

Information in the form of pulses of light from the light emitting unit 312, is passed in both directions along the conduit 300 and is collected and interpreted by the data communication means 314.

The information, for example, the ambient temperature, the traffic conditions ahead, speed of vehicle, speed of other vehicles, relative positioning in the road, distance from car in front, distance to nearest petrol station, etc., is then communicated to the remote device 316 via connectivity means (not shown) ; the connectivity means can be in the form of a modem.

The monitoring stations 310 are wirelessly connected to the remote device 316 by way of a modem, or radio frequencies-such as BLUETOOTH^® technology, or other wireless means.

The remote device 316 may be a computer located on board a vehicle, and/or an Internet Service Provider via the world wide web or other globally accessible means; the remote device 316 may be accessible by authorities, for example, traffic police, road and traffic management, Health & Safety Executive or utility companies. In this way, motorists would have to adhere to the speed limit, and traffic management data would be readily available which could mean redirecting traffic from busy roads to less busy roads. Utility companies could have advanced warning of frost and with a plurality of fibre optics within the core of the conduit 300, the utility companies could share the lines for their own uses.

When wirelessly connected to the computer on board a vehicle, warning lights or noises can be made to alert the driver to possible obstructions on the road, for example, if the driver is approaching a corner too fast, approaching too close to the edge of the road, or to alert the driver to obstructions in the road such as a dear or another vehicle, in this case a collision could be avoided.

In a fifth embodiment of the present invention, as shown in Fig. 12, there is provided a conduit 400 comprising monitoring stations 410 with an information transfer means 412 and data communication means 414 which allows data communication between the monitoring stations 410 and connectivity with a remote device 416.

The monitoring stations 410, as with the previous embodiment, are positioned at intermediary points along the conduit 400.

The information transfer means 412 is of the form of a copper wire or other conductive means and allows the transfer of information from one monitoring station 410 to another.

The information transfer means 412 will also allow independent sensors (not shown) to be connected, either wirelessly or not, to communicate with one another and to the monitoring stations.

The monitoring stations 410 are wirelessly connected to the remote device 416 by way of a modem, or radio frequencies-such as BLUETOOTH^® technology, or by other wireless means. The remote device 416 is of the form of a computer on board a vehicle or an Internet Service Provider or other globally accessible means.

Information may be sent from the monitoring stations 410 to the remote device 416 by an email using POP/SMTP or HTML.

With the conduits 300 and 400 just described, other sensors may be linked to allow communication with the monitoring stations 310 and 410.

Currently, road surfaces 20 which are prone to icy patches are highlighted by a road side sign. In a sixth embodiment, as shown in Fig. 13, icy patches can be determined by a frost sensing device 500 utilising the previous conduits 300, 400, comprising frost sensors 516, 520 which can be integrated into the bitumen strip 514 or which alternatively can be located remote from the conduit 510 proximate to an icy patch, for example embodied in the road surface 20.

Wireless communications, as previously described, would allow a two-way transfer of data from the frost sensors 516, 520 to the monitoring stations 310 or 410.

A remote frost sensor 700 is shown in Fig. 15 and comprises two conduits 710 joined to a monitoring station which is housed in a protective housing 712 with protective sleeves 714, and a remote frost sensor 718 which senses frost and rainfall and wirelessly transmits the information by data communication means 720 to the monitoring station 712.

If icy patches were observed on the road surface 20 then the information transfer means 412 in the form of a copper wire or other conductive means can be heated to melt the ice, or snow. Alternatively or additionally, separate heating means can be provided on or within the conduit.

The conduits 300, 400 will have intermediate junctions 600 where two lengths of conduit are joined together. Such joints 600, as shown in Figs. 14a and 14b, comprise two conduits 610 joined at an end by connecting means 612 which is housed in a protective housing 614.

In this way, a monitoring station 616 can be removably attached to ends of the connection means 612 to upload or download information.

Alternatively, two conduits 610 may be joined to an alternative fixed connection means which integrally mounts a monitoring station 620 proximate to the conduit 610.

With the conduits as described in situ, the plurality of conductive members can be employed to distribute power or electricity. The conduit 10, 100, 200, 300 or 400 has an outer circumference made from hard plastic to reduce ware and tear with vehicles driving over said conduit 10, 100, 200, 300 or 400. The outer circumference can have a rough surface or graduations or other non- slip means so that braking cars come to rest quickly.

With the limitless amounts of information which may be conveyed by the aforementioned conduits, there may be a plurality of fibre optic cables or conductive members 800, as shown in Fig. 16.

Modifications and improvements may be made to the foregoing without departing from the scope of the invention.

Claims

1. Signalling apparatus comprising an elongate carrier member adapted to be placed along a desired path, the carrier member having distributed along its length a plurality of light producing elements to provide a visual signal along the length of said path.

2. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein said light producing elements are distributed substantially equidistantly spaced along the length of the carrier member.

3. Apparatus as claimed in either preceding claim wherein the light producing elements are light reflective elements.

4. Apparatus as claimed in claim 3 wherein the light reflective elements are formed of a reflective material.

5. Apparatus as claimed in claim 3 wherein the light reflective elements are formed of a retro-reflective material.

6. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the light producing elements are light emitting elements.

7. Apparatus as claimed in claim 6 wherein the light emitting elements are formed of a fluorescent material .

8. Apparatus as claimed in claim 6 wherein the light emitting elements include a fibre optic cable.

9. Apparatus as claimed in claim 8 including a light source which propagates light through the fibre optic cable.

10. Apparatus as claimed in claim 9 wherein the propagated light is coded by different colours.

11. Signalling apparatus comprising an elongate carrier member adapted to be placed along a desired path, the carrier member having a plurality of monitoring stations distributed along its length, each monitoring station having data transmitting/collecting means.

12. Apparatus as claimed in claim 11 wherein at least one of said data transmitting/collecting means can pass data to other data transmitting/collecting means on said carrier member.

13. Apparatus as claimed in claim 11 or claim 12 wherein at least one of said data transmitting/collection means can pass data to a central unit.

14. Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 11 to 13 wherein said data transmitting/collecting means transmits and collects data in the form of light pulses.

15. Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 11 to 13 wherein said data transmitting/collecting means transmits and collects data in the form of electrical pulses .

16. Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 11 to 15 wherein said data transmitting/collecting means are interconnected by means of information carriers .

17. Apparatus as claimed in claim 16 wherein said information carriers are fibre optic cables.

18. Apparatus as claimed in claim 16 wherein said information carriers are electrically conductive members.

19. Apparatus as claimed in claim 12 or claim 13 wherein said data is passed by means of a modem.

20. Apparatus as claimed in claim 12 or claim 13 wherein said data is passed by means of wireless communication.

21. Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 11 to 20 wherein the data is passed to a remote device.

22. Apparatus as claimed in claim 21 wherein said remote device is a computer on board a vehicle.

23. Apparatus as claimed in claim 21 wherein said remote device is an Internet Service Provider or other globally accessible device.

24. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said path is a road for vehicles.

25. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said path is an emergency exit route.

26. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said carrier member is transparent .

27. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said signalling apparatus has heating means.