Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Construction or agricultural-type vehicle
Patent
1998-08-31
2000-11-28
Chin, Gary
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Construction or agricultural-type vehicle
701213, 239 1, 239 69, E01H 1000
Patent
active
061546992
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods, apparatus and control systems for dispensing salt, grit or other substances on surfaces, for example for spreading salt or grit over icy roads
BACKGROUND
Measures are conventionally taken in a wide range of weather conditions for ensuring that highways, major urban roads and even more minor routes are kept open for traffic. In cold countries, or during wintery periods in more temperate climates, salt, grit or other substances are dispensed onto road surfaces to ameliorate driving conditions, for example by preventing or reducing build up of ice. Hereinafter the salt, grit or other substances, whether or not particulate, will be referred to simply as "grit", while the process by which they are applied will be termed "gritting".
Gritting is conventionally performed by gritting vehicles which carry a store of grit and travel along a predetermined route distributing grit across the road surface as they travel. Grit is dispensed at a substantially constant rate, although in special circumstances the driver may increase the rate.
Producing and supplying large quantities of grit is expensive. Furthermore, besides the beneficial effects of gritting there are also important detrimental effects Some grits cause significant environmental damage, or are corrosive to vehicles. For these reasons it is desirable that the amount of grit dispensed is minimised, while ensuring that roads are effectively treated.
Development in the technology is slow, since gritting is a vital safety service and no modification can be tolerated if it may reduce effectiveness. Nevertheless, techniques have recently been devised to help determine more accurately when it is necessary to carry out gritting. One such technology makes a "thermal map" of a geographical area by surveying the area to determine a map of the local temperature variations, due e.g. to exposure to cold winds. In particular a relevant kind of thermal map indicates which parts of major roads are prone to low temperatures. This fixed information can be combined with periodically or continuously updated information from local weather stations concerning actual weather in specific locations, to produce a "forecast thermal map" which approximates a predicted actual temperature distribution in a region. Graphical information can then be generated showing estimated temperature variation along each of the predetermined potential gritting routes, and hence showing which of such routes include stretches of road which are liable to become icy. If the entire length of a route should be free from ice, no gritting vehicle need pass along it. If it is found that a given route includes a potentially icy stretch of road then a vehicle is sent.
DE-A-3938147 describes a gritting system which seeks to reduce the mentioned difficulties by pre-determining a gritting rate profile based on knowledge of the route's temperature variation characteristics and the prevailing weather conditions; the profile is loaded into an on-board computer and used to operate a control mechanism for the gritting apparatus, controlling spreading density, width and lateral distribution profile. Change from one mode of spreading to another is actuated by occasional reflector plates positioned adjacent the route, which reflect radiation beams back to the vehicle.
In its broadest terms, the present invention proposes a gritting system in which the position of at least one gritting vehicle (preferably plural gritting vehicles) is monitored, preferably at an external control or tracking station and preferably substantially continuously or regularly.
In a first aspect we provide a method of gritting in which the location of at least one gritting vehicle is monitored and the dispersement of grit is controlled in dependence on a predetermined gritting requirement at that location. In this way, the efficiency of the gritting may be enhanced.
The control is preferably exercised in dependence upon a predicted temperature at the location of the gritting vehicle,
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