At the 22nd Intertraffic Amsterdam, the transport technology fair, was the first public presentation of MARWIS – our new mobile road sensor. It looked good on its centrally positioned pedestal. But, did it also convince with its technological features? How does the software for its data analysis actually look like? Read more here to find out…
Foto credit: Route One Publishing Ltd
At this year’s Intertraffic in Amsterdam we had two main purposes: First official presentation of the new mobile road sensor MARWIS and introduction of the invasive road sensor IRS31Pro-UMB. Both targets were reached, what is noticeable especially with regard to the attention towards the MARWIS. It‘s planned to produce a limited MARWIS lot from autumn 2014 on until end of 2014 and sell them exclusively to customers who will thus be early adopters. Almost all copies of this limited number have already been reserved by letters of intent, which means, that the MARWIS is almost sold out for the first production lot. In addition, we are confident that the remaining pieces will be ordered soon. Our customers got a MARWIS 3D print model with the same weight and size as the original one, in order to thank them for their loyalty.
Also most of the new interested persons asked directly for our first mobile sensor which is able to measure 100 times per second. This was probably because the MARWIS was an eye catcher placed on a pedestal in the middle. Furthermore Brian Mulligan, the CEO of the software company Applied Information presented a program which can track the route and road conditions while measuring with the MARWIS. “It is important to make the use of highly technical products as easy as possible,” stated Mulligan, who showed live measurements of roads in South Africa and the U.S. directly at Intertraffic. It is planned to offer this optional software with the new sensor. But through the open UMB protocol clients can also simply connect their own (software) solutions. The compact and lightweight design will make the mounting of the MARWIS to the vehicle very easy as well. A protective tube and the same durable material as used for ship propellers will protect the MARWIS optimally against road dirt and salt.
As mentioned at the beginning, the other highlight at the fair for transport technology was the invasive road sensor IRS31Pro-UMB that has become available recently. It replaced the IRS31-UMB and comes with many improvements, such as friction, ice percentage measurement as well as better temperature measurement accuracy. In parallel, the active invasive ARS31Pro-UMB which can be properly connected to the IRS31Pro-UMB, was introduced. Compared to the passive sensor IRS-31Pro-UMB, the ARS31Pro-UMB works with a so-called Peltier element, with which the sensor is warmed and cooled. This allows it to determine the freezing point independently of the de-icing material, whereas the IRS31Pro-UMB is specialized in sodium chloride. The combination of the two sensors can thus perform a salt-independent freezing temperature measurement. However, because not only the surface temperature but also the depth temperature is of interest, there are two different depth-temperature sensors which are placed in five respectively in 30 centimeters below the road. These are useful to predict the road condition, e.g. in order to get black ice warnings.In summary, this year’s Intertraffic in Amsterdam is hailed as a great success and we are looking forward to the next trade show!
