Using microcontrollers and sensors, Iranian researchers have produced smart road studs that are capable of detecting the movement of animals and humans, mountain falls, and fires on suburban and urban roads.

Two researchers, Aram Ghafouri and Shahram Ghafouri from Kurdistan Province, won the silver medal at the World Invention Competition in Geneva, Switzerland, for their “Smart Road Stud” project. This project has been designed and offered to make the roads smarter and with the aim of reducing road accidents and minimizing the damage caused by the existence of roads in the environment.

The third period of this competition was held from 20 to 22 August 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland, and 1500 inventions from 50 countries participated in this event. The evaluation criteria of the jury included a set of intrinsic aspects of each invention, including the compatibility of the innovation with the environment and the existence of tangible public demand for the invention.

Inventions and innovations were classified into 13 separate classes, which include fields such as computer science, medical technology, mechanics, civil engineering, environmental protection, agriculture, etc.

Aram Ghafouri, one of the researchers of this project, said: “One of the technical problems of roads and streets that causes accidents is the lack of sufficient visibility of drivers due to factors such as fog, snow, rain, road bends, tunnels, high speed on highways, natural obstacles such as rocks, trees, humans, the passage of wild and domestic animals, fires, etc.”

He said: “To solve this challenge, we managed to design and produce smart road studs with the ability to detect the condition of cars and the road. These tools are able to detect moving or stopped cars on the roads, as well as open or blocked roads due to rock falls or fires.”

Ghafouri mentioned the detection of the presence of domestic or wild animals on the road surface as one of the other capabilities of these systems and reminded: “As soon as these tools receive information from the road surface, they warn passing drivers by sending visual signals through lights. These warning signs are sent from a hundred meters to several kilometers before the driver arrives at the danger zone.”

Stating that these systems can be installed separately for each lane, this researcher said: “This systems function with the help of microcontrollers, sensors, lights and wireless communication.”

Emphasizing that smart studs have three indicator lights, he said: “Each of these lights has the ability to change to three warning colors of "green", "yellow" and "red" and two modes of flashing and steady. Also, on the left and right sides of these systems, there are two infrared motion sensors and two ultrasonic distance sensors. The electricity of these systems is supplied through solar panels.”

Ghafouri added: “These smart studs are designed in such a way that with the pressure of the car’s tire, their height changes downwards and becomes level with the road so as not to damage the car and the stud. This ability is provided to the smart studs by using a spring under them.”

Referring to the performance of these systems in the field of fire warning, this researcher added: “As the ambient temperature rises above the set level in the thermometer sensor of these studs, the command is issued to change the color of the indicator lights from any state to a fixed red state for all lanes located in the danger zone. This command is also sent to other smart studs through a radio transmitter.”

According to him, through smart studs that receive the message, the command to change the color of the indicator lights from any state to a fixed red state will be issued for all lanes in the danger zone.

He enumerated the detection of the movement of living beings such as humans and animals on the road, announcing the status of each lane separately to drivers, the possibility of sending the road condition and accidents to the traffic police, emergency department and fire department, the ability to install on all suburban and urban roads and using in production lines of factories, urban and suburban trains, ports and airports as other capabilities of these systems.