Signal 4 The intelligent highway will soon be able to charge your life

With the increasing demand for the autonomous vehicle, it nearly draws everyone’s attention in the related industry. However, there is also something that we overlooked. Do we also need smart traffics and smart highway to support the smart vehicles?

Recently, a Chinese tech company, Qilu Transportation has given us its answer. Qilu has just successfully finished an experiment on their 1.0 generation intelligent highway. This technology will enable the road with solar panels, mapping sensors, and electric-battery rechargers. Being embedded underneath the transparent concrete, it could help fast charge the autonomous vehicles and produce real-time vehicles data mapping so that the government could coordinate the traffic in a more efficient way.

There are basically three vertical layers for the smart road with the first layer filled with recharging wires and sensors that could monitor the temperature and traffic flow, and solar panels spread across the other two layers. The total thickness of the three layers is less than 1 inch, which makes the road look just the same with the normal roads except the layer is made of transparent materials to better help the absorption of sunlight.

Economically speaking, the total cost of this technology is about 400 dollars per square meter, which is a relatively high cost, but I suggest the Chinese government seriously consider and encourage the development of it so that its next generation could be more economic friendly and powerful since the implementation of such technology could significantly increase our life quality and improve the governmental traffic coordination.

Reference:

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-11/the-solar-highway-that-can-recharge-electric-cars-on-the-move