Building a Smart Work Zone Using Roadside LiDAR

Work Zone (WZ) related injuries and fatalities from vehicular crashes are rising because of the increasing maintenance needs of the aging transportation infrastructure in the United States. Although many potential benefits from commercial WZ intrusion technologies have been recognized, they have not seen widespread adoption due to cost, simplicity, and limitations in their design to only provide post-intrusion alarms. Hence, there is significant interest and motivation in developing Smart Work Zone (SWZ) safety systems that predictively warn workers of vehicle intrusion threats with more accuracy and greater lead times. In this paper, we review the perception and alarm requirements, and propose the emerging Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) as a suitable sensing component. Specifically, we analyze LiDAR resolution and frequency in the context of a WZ application, detail an initial vehicle detection and tracking algorithm running realtime between sensor updates, and provide annotated datasets for a stationary roadside LiDAR in highway / urban road environments.