TRUGRD Stream – Near Perfect Detection
In December 2020, Smart Video & Sensing started a 6-month-long project to test the performance of smartmicro's traffic sensors in Southwick Hill Tunnel.
Poor visibility, constant light reflections, and stringent regulations – there are no more demanding tests for a traffic sensor than a tunnel installation. Even under these most challenging conditions – smartmicro's TRUGRD Stream proved its capability to provide the best possible detection.
smartmicro's TRUGRD Stream is an all-in-one detection solution, combining the benefits of radar and camera. As a 4D/UHD+ sensor with a forward-firing system, TRUGRD Stream looks along the road, providing broad coverage - up to 300m in range and over 100 º field of view. Thanks to the simultaneous use of multiple beams, the detected object remains in the device's field of view for much longer than with common loop-based sensors. The object's position and speed vectors are measured with higher accuracy, which leads to a more successful classification.
Southwick Hill Tunnel is a 490m twin-bore road tunnel in the Shoreham-by-Sea area in West Sussex, England. As part of the A27 Brighton bypass, the tunnel is a part of a strategic cost route – meaning high traffic and high incident count. The underpass is equipped with a National Highways' Detection Test Bed, designed by Cogniva Consultancy Limited and installed by Smart Video & Sensing (SVS). Said Test Bed is a permanent system supplied with 18 CCTV cameras, located in test-points dispersed over the tunnel's length, spread approximately 50m apart. The cameras provide a 24/7 recording to monitor the tunnel's traffic and verify the performance of tested devices - the accuracy of detected incident alarms, as well as the number of missed alarms. The test system is independent of any other installations to reassure its reliance and security integrity.
To accurately check the sensor's performance, the SVS Team installed one TRUGRD Stream device at each Test Bed's test points. The mounting positions were not ideal, and preparation was crucial. Due to regulations, no equipment or configuration changes were to be made after the evaluation phase - which began immediately.
Complete configuration was described as easy. The technicians achieved it within just 2 hours of the installation, providing the first incident reports in an impressively short time.
The test evaluation was based on comparing the TRUGRD Stream incident reports with the recordings of CCTV verification cameras. The tracked aspects included: the detection rate and the detection time of incidents, the number of false alarms, and the system's overall detection availability. English National Highways' standard "Quality Threshold to Perfection" requires a 75% detection rate and allows one false alarm daily, per covered kilometer. Furthermore, the data included the success rate of object classification in 7 different classes, the average speed, and the speed-per-vehicle detection.
And exactly how successful was TRUGRD Stream at the Southwick Hill Tunnel? The English National Highways' standard proved to be set much below the TRUGRD Stream's abilities. smartmicro's radar's average detection scored a 100% rate, including zero false alarms, and zero missed incidents. In the classification accuracy, the device achieved a 98,7% rate, with 98,89% to be expected when mounted at a more suitable location. The operators involved in the test were impressed with the radar's lane-specific detection. The trial concluded what we at smartmicro were sure of from the very beginning - TRUGRD Stream is "a very viable and desirable detection unit for any tunnel or stretch of highway".
The Smart Video & Sensing team has provided a presentation describing this use case in more details. To open the file, please use this link (click here).