News
Field installation completed!
The INTENT team is (really!) happy to report that the construction of the experimental road is now complete! This is the most critical milestone of the INTENT project and the culmination of years-long efforts of six research teams, and Mota-Engil S.A. constructors and engineers.
In a nutshell
The experimental road is 15m long and 3m wide and installed on an access road to a Mota-Engil quarry with monitored and controlled traffic, right before the weighbridge. This ensures the direct correlation between the signals and the passing traffic.
Panorama of the experimental road
The road is sensorized with 29 sensors, including ten strain gauges, two pressure cells, five humidity and temperature probes, six bender elements, three 3D-accelerometers, three 3D-gyroscopes), plus multiple aluminum foils as level markers for georadar measurements.
Strain gauge
Pressure cell
Bender element
Temperature and humidity probe
Smart rock
Georadar
- Only two sensors seem to have been lost, a strain gauge and a bender element, and in the latter's case the issue is the cable, so it will be easy to fix
Pair of bender elements in their ‘rabbit holes’. Fragile as porcelain, they need to be well-aligned for the receiver to sense the arrival of the wave triggered by the transmitter...
... and then, they passed a roller-compactor on top of them!!
- A data center was built in a hand-constructed cabin for the automatic data acquisition and analysis
Looks like a cabin in the woods, but it’s the INTENT hotspot!
Big thanks to the tireless and relentless INTENT team members who made this landmark possible
Hard to find a moment when everybody’s picture-ready…
... so we had to take multiple shots.
They didn’t shy away from anything, be it high-tech …
... or brute force!
But if there is one image that encapsulates all of their stories, it’s got to be this:
No comment, Sir!
Huge thanks to the INTENT team!
