06.12.23 - Enhancing Winter Road Safety: AI and LiDAR in Snowplow Technology

🎶 ❄ Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ❄ 🎶 

Switzerland has largely put on its winter coat. The last few days have been punctuated by snow removal. Who hasn't heard the snowplows working hard through the night, so that drivers can take their cars to work the next morning?

However, this routine task is subject to many difficulties: snow removal is often carried out at night and in bad weather, when visibility is poor, obstacles on the road are numerous, and human and material resources are consequent.

To find solutions to the issue of safety of snow clearance jobs, the associate professor Takanori Emaru from the Laboratory of Precision Metrology and Robotics at Hokkaido University has developed a robust, AI-enabled human-detection sensor for snowplows. The sensors were chosen to provide accurate information whatever the weather. The main sensors used are two sets of LiDARs, an RGB camera and a thermal camera. The snowplow is equipped with a GNSS RTK antenna to send a precise position of the machine. Finally, all these sensors are linked to an alarm system that detects not only humans but also their relative distance from the snowplow.

Find the full article and a video that shows a test that took place in February 2023 here https://lnkd.in/gtAPCUh4. Perhaps this technology will help us in the future to facilitate snow removal during heavy, dense snowfalls? ☃ 

Image by Takanori Emaru

#snow #AI #HumanDetection #Safety #LiDAR