Israel Matzav

And another cutting edge Israeli technology

A new technology developed by the Israel National Roads Company, the Technion and Innowattech Energy Harvesting Systems allows trucks to be weighed while in motion on a highway. As a result, overweight trucks will no longer be able to avoid detection by bypassing weighing stations.

The new weighing system, a self-powered system which is embedded in the road, completed its final round of testing this week on Road 75, near Haifa.

The system, which has potential for use in law enforcement, infrastructure maintenance monitoring and road and bridge design and planning, is a further development of the partnership’s custom piezoelectric generators, which can be used to produce electricity from vehicle motion on the road.

According to Adrian Potrus, director of the INRC’s research and development department, the development of the weigh-in-motion system was a direct by-product of the group’s original energy-producing solution, which was first revealed last year.

“We figured that if we’re already utilizing the vehicle’s motion for energy production, we could examine further applications and began working on the weigh-inmotion solution,” said Potrus.

Potrus said that while there are other weigh-in-motion technologies available around the world, what made their new development unique and groundbreaking is its level of accuracy and the fact that it allowed for real-time, wireless transfer of information and is self-powered.

“These systems are a landmark in our ability to ensure that trucks that overloaded do not make it to the road,” said INRC director-general Alex Viznitzer. “Overloaded trucks endanger other users of the road and damage the quality of the roads. The company will integrate Innowattech systems on bridges and other sensitive points.”

“This is the only system in the world that is embedded beneath the asphalt and allows accurate weighing at any speed and simultaneously enables the supply of electric energy needed to operate the monitoring system and communicate it to the relevant body. The system provides data on the weight as well as the speed of the vehicle,” said Innowattech’s CEO, Dr. Lucy Edery-Azulay.

Hmmm.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:08 PM