These Smart Motorway RADARS Watch Your Every Move!

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[@beatbasher]

Thanks Lewis. You have robbed me of hours of my life. As an electronics geek working in the fire and security industry I do have an interest in radio too, but your channel is the most interesting channel I have come across in ages. For someone with a bit of electronics knowledge, who has always wanted to expand their knowledge of radio, your channel has become the most popular thing on my TV screen. Keep up the good work, there's some great content for us geeks.

[@Pabz2030]

Apparently it doesnt work (very well) for stopped vehicle detection, and misses ~15% of SVEs (Stoped vehicle events). The national project has been put on hold while they explore other technologies, so I beleive.

[@richglist]

I worked for Navtech about 15 years ago and wrote the software for their w800 radar system. This was at the time they were starting to do the trial on the M42. Very good company to work for.

[@nw8000]

Please tell us how to defeat it

[@leehewitt9559]

What language, C?…

[@richglist]

@@leehewitt9559 the firmware was written in C and there was a bit of assembler for a few bits that needed to be really fast

[@richglist]

@@nw8000 why would you want to defet it. They are there for your safty

[@leehewitt9559]

@@richglist thought so👌

[@RobWhittlestone]

Very interesting episode Lewis. I work in ground-based air surveillance systems and your coverage of the details was really good. FMCW radar is also used in rail marshalling yards. The classic radar you showed was an ASR Airport Surveillance Radar typically with a range of 60-ish nautical miles and used to assist terminal ATC manage approaches & departures. It has a 2-D pencil beam primary radar using the lower antenna and a Mode S secondary radar utilizing an LVA (large vertical aperture) on top of the primary antenna. Fascinating stuff Lewis - keep 'em coming! Many thanks and all the best, Rob in Switzerland

[@rogerblackwood8815]

I was taught the long rectangular comb like radar is what we pilots call SSR, Secondary Surveillance Radar, That works with the transponder in the aircraft which is now MODE S but was previously Mode C and Mode A before that. Mode A was position only, Mode C introduced altitude encoding and Mode S is Speed, Alt and position with aircraft identifiers etc? The Lower dish type radar we call a Primary radar. The other system a friend of mine worked on was at RAF Fylingdales, which is called a phased array radar the workings of that system remain a mystery to me though, but it has a large 10 Nm HIRTA around it on the map and it looks very different to the Golf Balls we see around Croughton etc so I keep well away! I never really thought about radar being used in any other environment except Marine and aviation. We say you should learn something new every day, and I just learned something new, thanks👍 Just thinking out loud here, but is there any degradation in the system if the reflectors get contaminated with snow or rain? Or any other causes of reduced accuracy. What is the minimum number of reflectors needed for an acceptable fix? GPS needs 4 satellites at a minimum for an acceptable lock on, around 8 or 9 give much better accuracy. For aviation purposes we have WAAS which is the advanced form of DGPS, similar to the system described in this video for farmers. My thoughts on this system for road safety is not convincing. Clearly there is an issue as there have been a few deaths on UK smart motorways in situations this system seems to have been designed to prevent?

[@RobWhittlestone]

@@rogerblackwood8815 Hello Roger - yes indeed the rectangular antenna is MSSR (monopulse secondary surveillance radar) - sending probably modes 3/A, C and Mode S. Modes 3/A (ident - 'squawk') and C (barometrical altitude in 100ft increments) are slowly being phased out since there is no error correction and therefore other responses overlaying the desired signals can cause garbling and Mode S has a 'lockout' mechanism designed to reduce RF pollution on the 1030/1090 MHz band. Mode S has some error correction built-in and also contains ident and barometric altitude information (but in 25ft increments). FRUIT (false replies uncorrelated in time) is the enemy of correctly decoded replies, Mode S reduces FRUIT drastically. (It's well known that Frankfurt was one of the worst locations for FRUIT with 100 000 false replies per second.) Mode S radars can also be 'clustered' - so they intelligently decide among themselves which radar shall interrogate the aircraft. Mode S is so called because it can _selectively_ interrogate individual aircraft using the unique ICAO 24-bit aircraft address. Going back to MSSR, the "monopulse" feature allows the radar to locate the azimuth of the replying aircraft very accurately by using the phase relation of the returning signal plus the information from the rotational position encoder of the antenna. This allows the radar to accurately locate the aircraft. Additionally, many Mode S aircraft transponders can 'squitter' information spontaneously using ADS-B on 1090 MHz such as the current location of the aircraft and the quality of the GPS position fix. Mode S radars have an 'All call' feature where they solicit replies from all aircraft in range to build the list of aircraft that they can then selectively interrogate. Mode S interrogators transmit an interrogator code so that the transponder knows to which interrogator it has replied. Mode S doesn't directly transmit position, but does transmit speed & heading as well as advanced features like selected altitude (if on autopilot and in a climb, for example). The whole topic of Mode S and ADS-B are too big for this forum! Phased array radars send out pulses from Tx/Rx units (elements) which are controlled very accurately. Since a phased array radar uses many of these Tx/Rx units each controlling an antenna element. The phase of each pulse from each unit can be very accurately controlled, so that when all are triggered at the same time, the beam goes out straight, or the bottom ones before the top ones, then the wavefront (therefore also beam) is directed upward and eg. right ones before left ones then the wavefront is directed left etc. These can all be combined (computer controlled). So even a non-rotating phased array primary radar antenna can scan the sky up and down and from side to side. Incidentally we say "primary" for radars that work on the echo principle - they determine "is anything there?" Then, once we know there is something there and its azimuth from the radar, we can interrogate its transponder with the "secondary" radar to determine "who is there?". This is why military secondary antennas are sometimes skewed compared to the primary antenna, so as to allow for the processing delay of the primary plot and interrogate with secondary radar only slightly later as soon as we come to the appropriate azimuth. Sorry to go on - it's a huge topic. All the best, Rob in Switzerland

[@rogerblackwood8815]

@@RobWhittlestone Thanks for the detailed explanation. As I said, a friend of mine was in the RAF based at Fylingdales. He called himself a scope dope, obviously his detail was watching the screens all day, he said he was primarily tasked with stuff way up in the sky, space junk etc. He tried to explain the system, but as you say it is a huge subject on its own, a bit like when people ask questions about flying, there aren't many questions with a simple answer! Even the simple one, how high are we? Well are we talking above ground, MSL or Flight Levels? I learnt to fly when ADF was still a thing published on most approaches. We had to learn the theory of the ILS systems, I think I learnt enough to pass! All that knowledge is now pretty much redundant, as are the VOR's etc, many have gone off line permanently. It would seem you are involved in the latest systems and we could probably spend many an hour in a bar discussing these things! One of my favourite memories of Primary Radar was a flight from Ostend to Stapleford, just south of Stansted in the late 90's. I was mid channel, about 60 miles out from the VOR with a solid DME readout at 5000'. Yet Kent Radar, based at Manston on the coast said they couldn't see me, even with a Squawk issued by the Belgians. That didn't give me much confidence contemplating an emergency! With the advent of Mode S the coverage is much more reliable now. How does it perform in mountainous areas, are there still dead spots, as it is still line of sight?

[@MervynPartin]

Thank you. You have answered a question for me. I now know what those devices are, having noticed them whilst travelling on the M6 & M42 last weekend. I am not reassured, however, as I find the concept of smart motorways highly disturbing and having seen convoys of HGVs hurtling down what used to be the hard shoulder, a car in difficulties having to stop there is frightening as breakdowns can happen quickly. In fact, I personally find driving on motorways to be very tense, especially with the variable speed limits being imposed for tens of miles without any sensible need- as was the case on Sunday with a 60mph limit on a clear road with light traffic (this has been the case ever since motorway warning signals were first installed- they get switched on and forgotten). That, with the constant worry of speed cameras, does not help comfortable, safe driving. I am just waiting for the next pile-up with multiple casualties before the usual response to carnage- "Lessons will be learned" and yet more speed limits.

[@dragster40]

Great vid mate, something similar is used on some rail crossings here in the UK. It's called object detection and uses Lidar to detect people or objects on the crossing.

[@rachelcarre9468]

Cool video Lewis! Aviation uses a similar system to scan runways for debris to avoid the events that led to the Air France Concorde disaster. Aviation also uses the ground augmented GPS navigation system for instrument (GBAS) although it’s not in widespread use just yet.

[@georgebarlowr]

I think you're referring to GNSS, GBAS is just a ground unit that gives GPS correction data in order to improve the accuracy for things like instrument approaches (it essentially sends something known as a FAS data block). However the more commonly used however now is SBAS (satellite based augmentation system) as it is more widespread requires less upfront costs (divided per use) and maintenance fees. Both GBAS and SBAS has created the RNP APCHs (Required navigation performance approaches) used now instead of traditional RNAV instrument approaches, being considerably more accurate (RNP APCHs can be up to 0.3nm accurate).

[@davidcann6021]

Thanks for the info, I noticed these are now on the M6 as well on the section between Knutsford and Crewe. I'd still rather just have a good old hard shoulder! Within seconds in rush hour a truck had ground to a halt leaving everyone to dangerously try and move into the already very busy lanes, thank god it crawled onto a slip road.

[@bentleybloke]

I’m loving these videos Lewis, because I’m nosey I like to know what technology is out and about. I drive on the motorways lots and have always wondered what these white domes were. Thank you

[@EportChris]

This vid is awesome mate, thank you! Seen these along that stretch of m6 between knutsford and crewe....always wondered the purpose and how they worked. Cheers, Lewis 👍🏻

[@alastairbarkley6572]

Smart motorway? I'd prefer a proper hard shoulder, too. A few days ago my Nissan Qashqai decided to invent some bloody system fault (data mismatch, digital, accelerator pedal) and switched into rev-limited 'limp mode'. In theory, this gives you time to pull over - except, limp-mode fairly quickly morphs into 'roll to a halt mode' except, I was on a fast moving congested section of the M1 with no bloody hard shoulder. What was I meant to do? Abandon the car in lane 1 and just make a run for the banking. It was fkn scary - I eventually found a small gap in the shoulder boundary to get the car off the carriageway. And no, nothing smart came to my rescue.

[@TheVicar]

Not having a hard shoulder, no matter how amazing people think technology is, is F'in mad, just so the powers above can increase flow efficiency without investing in another costly lane. Its nuts and will continue to kill people. They've obviously done a cost/life analysis. And the money came first. Also notice that a lot of barriers have been installed to your left so you cant choose to ram your dying vehicle onto a grass verge to save human life. Disgusting murderous behaviour.

[@stevesmith7530]

"Proper" hard shoulders are the most dangerous lane on the motorway. It is exceedingly rare to not be able to roll to a refuge area on all lane running motorways, and if you are off the carriage way, there will be no rush to your rescue, especially if you have not contacted the highways agency or police. If you are a member of a recovery organisation they will do nothing about recovering you until highways are informed and close a lane for them to work in. What you are supposed to do is move left, switch on hazard lights, exit the vehicle by the left hand doors, climb the bank and call 999 and ask for police. Ideally with the number on a nearby blue & white post. That will gain a much faster response than being off the carriageway, and thus is safer for everyone.

[@alastairbarkley6572]

@@stevesmith7530 I'm sure you're right Steve. Having huge trucks expanding rapidly in your mirror, hearing them slam on the anchors and swerve round me in a blast of air-horns somewhat defeated my thought processes. Several times In fact, all this wonderful digital tech needed was a reboot - switch off and start up again, and the fault temporarily clears removing the rev limiter. It did keep recurring intermittently afterwards though. And the fix? A new pedal assembly - £510 plus labour, and there isn't one in the UK atm. What was wrong with analogue cars eh?

[@stevesmith7530]

@@alastairbarkley6572 Well, in reverse order, the problem with analouge cars is the public learned they were not wanted. More and cleaner power from smaller engines, lots of electronic toys etc. You hit the nail on the head too, so many people do not consider what they should be doing, then any common sense they may have gets drowned in fear. Hence why thehighway code, driving tests, tv ad campaigns etc contain instructions on what to do, but so few people pay attention whilst or before driving.

[@underwaterdick]

@@stevesmith7530 it truly worries me that anybody thinks that the Hard shoulder of a UK motorway is in ANY way a safe place to stop. I have met too many police officers who have attended nasty accidents on the hard shoulder. - I even used to know one officer who was sadly heavily brain damaged when his car was hit by a lorry when stopping to protect a broken down car. His partner was unable to walk for over a year too. When my friends used to pass their driving test, I would always say, "if ever you break down on the hard shoulder, get out of the car and keep well away from it... NEVER stop unless broken down." This advice paid off one day when a European Lorry clipped a friends broken down car, spinning it round a few times and shunting it into the Hard Shoulder crash barrier. Had they been sat in the car, or on the barrier, it would have been very nasty.

[@captainzapppp]

‘On certain motorway sections’ is the key phrase. Too many smart motorways have recently been opened without this equipment installed at the very start.

[@freesaxon6835]

Next level video 👌🏻👏🏻 well researched, and informative. Never knew any of this about our automated autostrad container system. The radar system for motorways was also very explained and detailed.

[@stephenjones9153]

Great video once again Lewis 👏 👍 👍. Having driven along the M60 Smart Motorway 🛣 I must admit it scared me everytime 😱😳, just thinking of how many families 👪 are going to be wiped out by a truck whenever they break down. Safety refuse,s at various locations along the stretches with live hard shoulders seem a bit iffy to me considering most driver's can't even pull up in a sensible place at the side of an ordinary road let alone a high speed motorway. I think a permanent hard shoulder for an emergency is far better than non. Luckily the only 2 times I've ever had an engine blow up on me at 70mph I've always managed to dip the clutch and coast off the Motorway at the next junction pulling over in the safest place I could, the problem is some driver's who panic and instead of using the vehicles momentum and Kinetic energy just slam on there brakes and stop either in the middle of the motorway or in the most dangerous spot they can find. No Sorry Smart is more like Dumb IMHO and not for me.

[@amazer747]

Agreed. Although technically interesting, the practical use on Smart Motorways is insufficient to prevent a collision, or stopped vehicle, from causing a dangerous situation. How long before human interaction can intervene and remove the danger? How many automatic overhead warning/speed restriction signage is required to cover what the radar can detect?

[@nottjohn9418]

I'm on the motorways all the time and never knew this, I'll keep an eye out for them. I always learn something with your videos. Cheers!

[@tomtom85421]

Great video mate. Really well researched and loads of info. Seen these on Smart Motorways and never knew how they worked.

[@paulbell7654]

Great video! I always thought these were GSM antennas for the signage and cameras and wondered why they still had so many fibre optic cabinets along the new smart motorways going in(the tall grey ones with laser warning signs on side) Keep up the interesting content

[@pauljones1838]

Great good video Lewis, the company that make them and the highways agency will be using this video as a training aid. Well done 👍

[@thefiestaguy8831]

The enhanced GPS you talk about is actually called DGPS, D being "Differential". Basically uses a network of satellites along with fixed GPS ground based reference stations to give far greater accuracy.

[@pichacker]

Hi Lewis... along the M25 here in Essex are a series of flat panels looking at the road. These feed information back to the HA base in Dartford and if unusually slow or stopped traffic is detected then the monitor cameras are switched to view that location. That way they are quickly informed of incidents. As you can imagine with the large number of cameras it would not be humanly possible to visually monitor all of them at once...

[@Ibsonlovesyou]

Interestingly following on from the agricultural side of things. A lot of people are happy with the gps without a base station in the field and use a plus or minus 100mm accuracy. A modern way to get around needing a base station is RTK, which uses mobile data to help triangulate the position of the tractor more accurately and so increasing its accuracy.

[@robbutterill1426]

RTK is what we use for our gps kits on site because you can get around +-25mm precision on it, using a controller with a built in sim. Very handy, but expensive. I imagine these radars will be fitted with a similar system but knowing Highways England they’ll find a way to cut costs

[@smorrisby]

10 seconds for the radar to detect a stopped vehicle. At 70mph an awful lot can happen in that time. I would love to meet one of the knuckleheads who came up with the idea of closing the hard shoulder.

[@onlywayisforward]

Happy I found your channel I never knew about half of the stuff going on to do with radio transmission, truly eye opening. Thanks for sharing.

[@Eddiecurrent2000]

I've been looking for info about these for a while! And you've answered all my questions!

[@JediOfTheRepublic]

I want one of these for my house so I can replace all my motion sensor cameras. Really cool technology.

[@Maeday5615]

The detail In this video was stunning!

[@me-cq7wv]

Very informotive video and well put together as always. I always wondered what them geezers were at the side of the road in east Oz. Now I know. Thanks for posting.

[@davidspencer5668]

Wow, Lewis, that is amazing, please keep these wonderful videos flowing, Merry X-mas buddy

[@Ossie12pints]

Great video Lewis and great technology. It's just a pity the people in charge of smart motorways aren't quite so observant. I drive a truck for a living and have seen stationary vehicles in the hard shoulder even though the signs are displaying the lane is open!! Smart motorways are dangerous when it comes down to human error.

[@bluechang08]

This is the issue with so-called Smart motorways - I was travelling on the M6 southbound 2 weeks ago and saw a car broken down in lane 1 (the driver was stood at the back of the car in the middle of the live lane) All the signs said the lanes were clear just before and just after the broken down car, but less than 2 minutes down the motorway, the operators had seen fit to slow everyone down for 'report of person in the carriageway' - we saw nothing like it in the area they'd slowed the traffic down for. For the Smart motorway network to be covered by so many CCTV cameras, It seems ridiculous that they can't use the lane control correctly. In future, I think a call to the police might be in order to ensure they know there is a broken down vehicle in a live lane as I dread to think what could happen with a non observant driver ploughing into the stationary vehicle.

[@dubliner1100]

Yet another fascinating and informative video. Thank you so much 👌

[@valentinscirsis]

Finally!!!!!!!!!!!! Somebody answered my long standing question!!!! Thank you, Lewis!!! ⭐

[@neallewis1]

Seen these on M62 and this was the information I was looking for to explain them. Cheers.

[@stumpymacgabhann]

Clear and concise, something new to dive into. Thanks for info.

[@jmileshc]

Fascinating. GNSS & RTK Precision farming is interesting, quite a few open source projects including automated driving. Fab work, thank you.

[@RobCCTV]

VERY interesting. I was once in the CCTV industry and so many companies were promoting video analytics as being the solution for such detections, but time and time again the systems would oversell the effectiveness and got shot down when any practical tests were done.

[@stepheneyles2198]

That's great to know, I always wondered what those white pots were doing! I thought they were monitoring weather conditions due to the gap below the unit.

[@filkey762]

Solving a problem that did not need to exist.

[@speedbird737]

brilliant thanks - I drive through the Hindhead tunnel frequently - Can you do a video on the now defunct camera system that was just to tell if traffic was heavy or not - on the A3 you can see the remnants of the green camera units attached to bridges

[@bradleystannard3492]

Was going to send UK Highways an email asking what it was. Saved me an email!

[@JimBrodie]

Removing the hard shoulder to facilitate 'smart' functionality is a potential death sentence for anyone who breaks down when the 'system' isn't working properly. Plus quelle surpreeze, another form of surveillance for our authoritarian regime to use. I like the 'smart highway' idea in theory but in practice it's a long way off and implementers have their own agendas.

[@bryanjk]

Um no you're way off base... why would the system be down? The government implemented this to make things more efficient on the road. Obviously they have reliability and redundancy in mind. Get off your high horse, the government are just people and want what's best for society, obviously what this system is. I bet your the type to deny climate change, cell phones and probably believe the earth is flat! Get with the program, don't be a sheep! 🐑

[@boilerroombob]

What a revelation...well done sir

[@Elmantukas]

I always thought what those were on m25! Thanks for explaining it such great detail!

[@sparkidee]

This is really informative! I never knew this about smart motorways. Great video mate

[@ShaunieDale]

My first thought is how do they null out permanent objects in the field of view such as street furniture in the form of lamp posts and barriers. Presumably it compares the current view with a reference view generated with no vehicles present. I’d be interested to know if this was performed locally or at the control room.

[@uzaiyaro]

I would also imagine that during setup for one of these things, one can tell the software to ignore permanent things. They may also tie in to CCTV and thus have forms of object detection and removal as well, but that’s just a guess. If it were my system and I was designing it; I would pair each sensor up with CCTV nearby/next to the sensor, and an operator could use a mouse or tablet pen to simply paint over the objects you wish to make the system ignore, or similarly that you want the system to *never* ignore, such as any object that has been detected in a breakdown bay. I would want the system to fire off a notification the second it spots something-anything-in this part of the frame. An advantage of pairing it to CCTV is that when the system does fire a notification, an operator in a control room who clicks on the notification, will also be immediately taken to a live feed of that sensor, with that camera, already zoomed in and focused on the point of which the software generated the notification for. The operator will then have the decision to reject or action that notification, and when actioned, the operator will have access to CCTV footage starting, say, 30 seconds prior to the event that triggered the software. That and as you said, simply comparing a scan that it took just now, to scans taken at previous points in time. It shouldn’t take many scans for the software to work out that a given thing is a fixed object, and thus is to be discarded on future scans. P.S. having more of a think about this, I am almost certain that to set one of these up, you will have to tell the software how many lanes your piece of road has, how wide each lane is, perhaps the direction of those lanes, and similar pieces of data, which will then give the software some idea on where it should be looking and focusing its attention on, in each of these scans. I think that once you tell the software specific information about the piece of road it is responsible for, then scanning and mapping clutter for removal is fairly simple, and can be done decently reliably without much-if any-human intervention. Although, false positives may not always be a bad thing. For a safety-critical system like this, I would personally want to err *just* on the side of caution. You don’t want one of these spitting out false positive notifications every five seconds, but maybe two or three in one eight hour shift is something I would consider to be acceptable. It’s about finding a sweet spot between being more sensitive and thus kicking out alerts for something slightly out the ordinary, but not picking up a million and one different things in each scan. Also, jeez this turned into an essay, didn’t it! Sorry to do that! But the above ideas is how I would design things if you plopped a movie trope cash-laden briefcase on my desk and demanded I build you something like this for your motorway.

[@ZonkedCompanion]

It's radar so it has depth perception. It doesn't see the world in 2d like a camera does. So one would assume it simply ignores objects like lamp posts because it knows they aren't in the lanes they are either to the left or to the right of the lanes.

[@233kosta]

I think it's looking for movement specifically.

[@AgentOffice]

It can ignore non moving stuff after a while

[@bsdjunkie1805]

00:47 good to see they all have hard hats on in case that container pops off the crane

[@ChoppingtonOtter]

Its used to scoop your remains up with. The peak is actually used as a scraper if that happens 😆

[@spig021]

These are now on the M1 in South Yorkshire, following several fatal accidents on the so called ‘smart motorway’.

[@gpm9333]

Smart highways are only built for the new world order.....WEF

[@marksecker1596]

Very informative and well narrated, keep going mate.😁

[@SatellitePatrick]

Had noticed these on the "smart" section of the M3, guessed that was their purpose but interesting to have some details.

[@____________________________.x]

This was why I subscribed, excellent video Sir. I was wondering why the M6 ones were all sitting on a base plate, but it seems it’s just a levelling fixture (because of the rotating internals) and not anything more technical in terms of RF. I guess if it can detect people sized objects then it’s going to be aware of anyone wandering around the edges of the road too.

[@rjy8960]

I was wondering that too :) Thanks!

[@Mottersmotters]

Hello Lewis great video. Also wondered what they were. I see them all the time. Motters M7TRS 73 👍🏻

[@ianharvey868]

So very in depth, thank you!

[@DanielGlover]

I got a nice drone shot of their building in Ardington as nice village did something there and happen to get them! and they got a new manufacturing place in Grove technology park I think, Tried for a job there, did not get. Nice video. In about 20 seconds thought Navtec do, and it was.

[@thehouseholder5468]

Amazing what our government spends and contrives without our knowledge, this really adds to the big brother shittte

[@SynapticIllusion]

I wondered what they were for! Thanks! Great video!!

[@GateKommand]

Thanks again Lewis, I wonder would a similar system to this be any use for S&R over water to detect persons? Also for the record I prefer this vid to the pirate radio ones mate but thank you for all of them!

[@hithere7382]

Our newer Ford trucks (2016-2022) have a thing that calls 911 for you if it detects a crash if your phone is connected via bluetooth and it plus the APIM survive the crash.

[@sil8127]

If I remember rightly, as the strads were automated they all drove exactly along the same sections of the road and it was causing damage. So they had to make them drive with some variation so it didn’t do that.

[@MartinZero]

Interesting stuff 👍

[@GaryOldSkool]

Very interesting video Lewis. You certainly know your stuff 👍

[@alferret1969]

Always learning. Well done :)

[@BLX187]

Good video. always saw them and wondered what theyre purpose was.

[@CallumT-te4rd]

Hey mate in the highway world where I work in we call these SVD’s (Stop Vehicle Detection)

[@dannywaghorn7120]

Seen these on the M62 on the way home from Winwick Carboot. Was wondering what they were for now I know 🤣 strange how your video was in my recommendations.

[@roberthorwat6747]

These are now deployed on the smart sections of the M4 which became fully operational in spring 2022 between J12 and J8/9. These may have the potential to save your life (and I am sure in the majority of cases they most certainly will prove worth their investment) but still rely heavily on the human factor. Sadly a woman died on this stretch in March after her car stopped and was hit by other vehicles which highlights that the delay between detection and action remains a big concern. Even despite the red X's and speed restriction signs, while nine out of ten motorists will abide and quickly adapt, there is always one lethal suicide jockey absolutely convinced that he knows better than to heed the signs. You can always tell when the speed restrictions start on the opposite carriageway, the tell tale flashes of the safety cameras increase in frequency quite dramatically. I watch in horror all too frequently as Captain Oblivious zooms down a closed lane. More Traffic cars? More effective and hard hitting media safety campaigns? Stiffer fines and penalties? I certainly hope so.

[@thefreedomguyuk]

nope. "Smart" will kill you !! just look at the stats!

[@nileamish2313]

Tis all big brother putting each citizen under a microscope and all about control period!

[@joeblow8593]

Interesting as always

[@eliotmansfield]

any idea what the things are that look like wireless access points are on the motorway - usually close to a hadecs speed camera

[@badgerousdadigby195]

Prob TMU (Traffic Monitoring Units) to set the speed limits or warn of high traffic volume.

[@leehewitt9559]

Fascinating Lewis 👌

[@samuelthorogood3878]

are you able to do anything on why GPS is made less accurate for civilian use? seems quite an interesting topic.

[@td5def]

Very interesting,and thanks for sharing Lewis.73

[@andyclark1426]

Love your explanations of radio/radar equipment, I’m a electrical technician on high speed trains, we use a lot of similar equipment

[@jovetj]

These types of radars can be vital around level crossings to detect blockages on the rail lines.

[@longsighted]

Top information and presentation

[@rowanjones3476]

GPS SA (Selective Availability), the deliberate degradation of the civilian GPS service, was turned off in 2000. There are still separate military and civilian signals, but the difference these days is not about accuracy, but jamming resistance. The older encrypted military ‘P’ code can be received by high end civilian receivers without decryption of it (codeless receiver ) but its principal benefit was due to it being transmitted on a different L2 frequency, facilitating measurement and removal of the measurement error term due to ionospheric delay. This made it useful for survey applications in combination with RTK differential techniques. Nowadays there are civilian L2C and aviation L5 signals broadcast in the clear negating the benefit of the L2P signal. Dual and triple frequency receivers are common now and even starting to appear in mobile phones. The military is moving to the M code. Scrambled and BOC modulated with the power shifted to the side lobes, making jamming harder. And this is just GPS. Europe, China, Japan, and India now have navigation birds in orbit. The GNSS signal and political landscape is far more complex than 30 years ago, and probably worth a video of its own. But, the crux of the issues you talk about, multipath and high dilution of precision with restricted sky views are still very real problems. The much higher number of satellites in orbit, and multiple frequency receivers certainly reduce this, but its by no means a solved problem. That said, I know google have been using 3D city models + ray-tracing as one way of reducing these error terms. But generally the solution is the use of multiple erroneous sources of truth + a stateful filter to weight their contribution to a combined solution.

[@LSUKGaming]

okay so u coverd this now u made me more intrigued... whats the senes looking ones same hight as light on motorway some times u see a redish beam/light from it...its not mounted on speed signs its just in the middle

[@niklar55]

Won't be long before they are adapted to revenue collecting, like all other ''safety'' devices introduced to the road system. .

[@colorblind1983]

Fascinating!! I wish we could see one operate without the cover on!

[@andyroid7339]

Good video Lewis. I've wondered about th purpose of these domes since they appeared along some stretches of the M1. Got to ask though - why allow them a field of 360 degrees instead of say 190 degrees to cover the motorway only?

[@omardude39]

By the nature of the design of the detector, it has to rotate in order to scan the area it is monitoring, so it automatically has a 360-degree field of view. A rotating head is a less complex design than oscillating and will be more accurate due to maintaining a constant speed.

[@andyroid7339]

@@omardude39 Thanks. I suppose we're still in the 'snare' of solid state at the mercy of mechanics. Perhaps in time a viable electronic beam control alternative will be developed.

[@echothehusky]

Another interesting video!

[@fukyutube2279]

They can watch me all they like. The masters should know we are coming. I don't hide my disgust at their system of control.

[@collinmc90]

interesting. I live right next to the Canadian border and have noticed things that look like this. also a LOT of trail cameras on the dirt roads around the border. wouldn't be surprised if they use a combination of camera and radar to make sure people aren't using these roads to get across the border. all there is out here is a barbed cattle fence about 3.5 feet high for miles across brush-steppe ecosystem.

[@non-human3072]

I have a question to ask.. I've a 23m s/steel cable which i would like to use as a long uhf/vhf aerial? Is this possible?

[@non-human3072]

I'm very new at this and not quite sure what is required at this point . if you can point me in the right direction I would be most grateful ..

[@jetsetjourneysofficial]

would be great to see their output visually

[@233kosta]

Given all the cameras on those things, that radar system is the least offensive part. It can't really identify and track individuals beyond a radar signature (which may be unique to each model of car at best), but unlike a camera, it doesn't need any special software to figure out how many cars are coming past it at any one time and how fast. I'd say this is probably the only useful and actually beneficial (to the driver) bit of kit in there. The rest is just to fill the coffers.

[@henrytwigger2245]

There needs to be an additional fail safe system. They could develop the technology of a "driver" to watch where they are going and detect stopped vehicles in front of them.

[@ianstokes291]

I thought they were wifi, I have learnt something new, thanks.

[@Unknown_Ooh]

Do you know if these radars are used in the U.S.? I've noticed devices that look exactly like the shown on highway information signs before and never paid them any mind.

[@user2C47]

Could be cell antennas.

[@stuartvaughan8599]

I wondered what they were. Recently appeared on the M23 in Surrey / Sussex

[@MikeM0XMX]

Excellent

[@andrewandrews7427]

Hello Lewis please do you or your pals know what happened to Flight Deck in Manchester. Years ago they sold radio gear?

[@RingwayManchester]

Hey Andrew I did start a video on this, the owner sent me a load of photos.

[@andrewandrews7427]

@@RingwayManchester Wow. Please let me know when your video is ready

[@daviddoink872]

M27 Smart motorway in Hampshire sets the speed limit to 60 every time I have used it , usually in the middle of the night, is there a reason for this ?

[@djaspinall1986]

Never knew that! Nice 1.👍🏻👍🏻🇬🇧🇬🇧👍🏻👍🏻🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@LoftechUK]

Brilliant tech

[@ddegn]

The inaccuracies in GPS are not intentional. Those inaccuracies were remove years ago. Local stationary stations are still helpful in improving accuracy.

[@RingwayManchester]

Ah cheers Duane! It’s always nice to learn

[@dj_dazzy]

Yes SA was switched off in 2000.

[@ddegn]

@@RingwayManchester "It’s always nice to learn" Which is why I'm subscribed to your channel. Thanks for all the interesting content.

[@kwakamonkey]

We had to re program the software for the Handheld units we manufactured for the outdoor market.

[@RingwayManchester]

Thanks so much mate

[@jammiedodger629]

Regarding the "autostrads" - they work very well until the anti collision system fails due to interference....

[@Benzknees]

If it's so clever I wonder why speed signs keep changing from 70 to 60 to 50 to 40 & back again when there's zero obstructions. Unless it's the ever changing speed signs themselves that are causing the obstructions by causing traffic to constantly slow & speed up!

[@robbutterill1426]

the technology is amazing - but all technology has some hitches and over-reliance can lead to issues. But it definitely is better than the old Loop Patches which is just a fancy traffic counter. The radar on the m1, m25, m6, is now constantly monitoring the vehicles around it

[@timgosling3076]

The main reason the Autostrads didn’t rely on just GPS is that isn’t to do with the accuracy being reduced for civilian users. In fact this degradation has been set to zero ever since the system was completed in the early ‘90s. The problem is that even a military P code receiver is only good to 3 metres. That’s good enough to tell the Strads which road they’re on but nowhere good enough to line up a container on top of another. And of course the military can also turn on the degradation any time they like. Unfortunately, I believe the GHz radar solution for motorways isn’t quite as robust as it needs to be and one wonders how the costs of making to so balance against just putting in a hard shoulder?

[@FlowState.Racing]

Very interesting but I dont undertand why they are placed at the sides of the road and not down the centre? Surely half of the area the radar can see is wasted on trees and fields at the side of the road or am I missing something?

[@shibasurfing]

I just want to correct you one point. The US does not degrade civilian GPS and has not done so in over 20 years. Who knows about GALILEO on the other hand?