Design of anti-collision system at mountain road turn based on wireless sensor networks

Due to the complexity and changeability of mountain roads, the accident rate is substantially higher than that of other types of roads, especially at road turns. Although numerous preventive measures have been sought to mitigate this problem, yet fatal collisions are severe up to the present. To solve this problem, in this paper, we design an anti-collision system prototype based on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to control traffic lights at mountain road turns. We employ Zigbee-based wireless geomagnetic sensor networks to capture real time information of vehicles near the turn and control traffic lights accordingly. We focus on node designs of sensor network and propose an algorithm for traffic lights control which shows the feasibility by a laboratory experiment. The system is low-cost and suitable for special circumstances of mountain areas. What is more, WSNs can be connected to the remote monitoring center with the help of GPRS, improving the efficiency of monitoring and management.