Wireless sensing in road structures using passive RFID tags

Abstract

In northern countries several freeze-thaw cycles may occur per day making it especially significant to monitor temperature and water content in road structures. This information is a valuable feedback in performance measurement systems to avoid unsustainable road technologies and as an input by choosing the suitable road design. The way to acquire this data in different layers of the road structure is costly, difficult and time consuming. In this article an idea is presented and preliminary laboratory tests are carried out to use radio frequency identification (RFID) tags with sensors in road structures to measure real-time data about significant parameters throughout the designed lifespan. RFID technology is a relatively new technology in road construction field that has widely spread in intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Because of its benefits, construction and transportation industries are researching and implementing RFID technology to improve data acquiring and storage applications. The results of these tests have proved that RFID tags can be read through different layers and depths of road construction materials. The use of gathered data in road performance measurement systems is proposed.