Development of a Smart Retroreflective Particle a "Tetra-Chip" to be used as a Substitute for "Drop-On" Road Beads

准确可靠的车辆定位对于自动驾驶和自动驾驶车辆至关重要，横向定位尤为重要。试想一下，一辆30吨重的无人驾驶卡车驶入了错误的车道。在从只有人类司机到混合车队的转变过程中。只有人类驾驶员的汽车，有人类驾驶员的自动驾驶汽车，以及道路上的全自动汽车。道路网络必须做好适当的准备，以便人类和机器都能阅读道路标记，从而做出正确的决定。实现这一目标的部分方法是确保人类和机器都能读取车道标记。在夜间，车道标记的检测是通过将车辆前照灯反射回车辆驾驶员或机器驱动车辆的传感器来实现的。这种反向反射是通过暴露嵌入在道路标线油漆中的微小玻璃珠来实现的。这些微小玻璃珠的暴露是车辆车轮对道路标记的磨蚀作用的结果，所以它本质上是一个系统。然而，要使该系统发挥应有的作用，需要时间，显然需要立即进行反思，以防止事故的发生。因此，为了解决这个问题，当铺设新的标志时，它们的表面被“滴入”路珠装饰。不幸的是，由于车辆负重轮的磨蚀作用和/或由于附着力差而被恶劣天气吹走/冲走，这些“掉落”的道路珠子在最初几天内就丢失了很大一部分。从“绿色”的角度来看，这是一种浪费，而且会导致全球变暖，因为制造路珠的能源效率很低。从经济/商业角度来看，这也是一种浪费，并降低了道路标志预防意外的效果。另一个影响标准和“滴入式”路珠的问题是，它们在潮湿/下雨的夜晚（最需要它们的时候）不能反射，因为覆盖在玻璃珠上的一层水改变了它们的折射率，反射变成了镜面而不是反射。Seeward有限公司开发了一种智能反光颗粒，旨在解决所有这些问题，并有可能用作“滴入式”路珠的替代品。该项目的目的是在许可该技术用于商业生产之前，在实验室条件下测试颗粒的性能。

Accurate and dependable positioning of vehicles is essential for automated and autonomous vehicles and lateral positioning is especially important. Just think of a thirty ton driverless lorry drifting into the wrong lane.During the transition from having only human drivers to a mixed fleet ie. Vehicles with human drivers only, automated vehicles with human drivers and fully autonomous CAVs on the roads. The road network will have to be properly prepared so that both humans and machines can read road-markings in order to make the correct decisions. Part of how this will be achieved is to ensure that lane markings can be read by both humans and machines.Detection of lane markings at night is achieved by the retroreflection of a vehicle headlight back to the driver of the vehicle, or a sensor, in a machine driven vehicle. This retroreflection is facilitated by exposing tiny glass beads embedded in the road-marking paint. The exposition of these tiny glass beads occurs as a consequence of the abrasive effect of vehicle roadwheels on the road-markings, so it is essentially a system. However, for the system to be functioning as it should, takes time and obviously immediate retroreflection is required for the prevention of accidents. Accordingly, in order to resolve this issue, when new markings are laid down, they are surface-dressed with "drop-on" road beads. Unfortunately a significant proportion of these "drop-on" road beads are lost in the first few days, due to the abrasive effect of vehicle roadwheels, and/or by being blown/washed away by inclement weather due to poor adhesion. This is wasteful in a "green" sense and contributes to global warming,because the manufacture of road beads is energy inefficient. It is also wasteful in an economic/commercial sense and reduces the effectiveness of the road-markings contribution to accident prevention.Another issue affecting standard and "drop-on" road beads is that they do not retroreflect at night in wet/rainy conditions (when they are most needed), due to a film of water covering the glass beads which alters their refractive index and reflection becomes specular rather than retro.Seeward Ltd has developed a Smart retroreflective particle designed to address all these issues and has the potential to be used as a substitute for "drop-on" road-beads. The aim of this this project is to test the performance of the particle under laboratory conditions prior to licensing the technology for commercial manufacture.