Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507210040
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Gov. George Allen announced this week Tech has won a $50,000 grant from a General Motors-led consortium for further smart road research. Tech will chip in $26,000 for a $76,000 package.
The money will go to research on the "methodology of automation." Translated from techno-talk, that means developing the "brains" of the smart-road system, said Ray Pethtel, Tech's pointman on the project.
"It's the first step in the process of actually developing a nationally recognized technology," Pethtel said. In the next phase, Tech's Center for Transportation Research will compete to have its system chosen as one of six technologies for further development. Following that, the consortium will choose three technologies for development of full prototypes.
"This is the first of what we expect to be a number of dollars to be spent on research and economic development here at Virginia Tech and in Western Virginia," Pethtel said.
Tech's proposal relies on an "infrastructure-based system" that uses "ultra-wideban impulse radar" to communicate between the road and receivers in cars and trucks, he said. The devices then control steering, distance between vehicles, speed and braking.
The smart road is a proposed six-mile highway between southern Blacksburg and Interstate 81 near Shawsville. The project, to be built in phases over as many as 15 years, would serve as a prototype for new technology designed to improve traffic safety.
Roanoke business leaders conceived the road to create a closer link to Virginia Tech. Its Tech backers also see it as a potential research and economic boon to the university and the New River Valley; critics consider it an environmental and fiscal folly.
In January 1994, the newly inaugurated Allen pledged $11 million of state money to build two miles of the highway and get Tech into the GM consortium seeking a huge federal grant to pay for more research. In October 1994, the GM group won the grant. This fall, the state Transportation Department will hold a public hearing in the New River Valley on the smart road's design.
by CNB