Highway Induction Paint to Enable Safety Messaging

The objective of the proposed Phase I Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration SBIR program is to develop a sprayable highway paint to communicate vehicle-to-everything (V2X) safety messages between infrastructure, vehicles and pedestrians. During Phase I, NanoSonic will work with Virginia Tech antenna designers and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) to design and analyze four different painted line options, synthesize the paints, apply them on roadway testbeds and experimentally test their communication effectiveness. The four system design options to be considered are based on NanoSonic’s prior research of magnetic and electrically conducting paints, current NanoSonic paint products, published papers and issued patents. High coercivity magnetic paint may be used to permanently store roadway safety information about fixed highway hazards such as intersections in rural areas, at-grade railway crossings and winding roads, and then read by passing vehicles. Painted roadway lines with high electrical conductivity may be used instead as bidirectional transmission channels, employing signal coupling methods developed by the electrical cable industry. These would allow the real-time communication of temporary hazards such as ice, accidents, lane closures and disabled vehicles. The optimal paint and communication system design will be down-selected for development, deployment and roadway testing during Phase II.