New idea from Smart Villages puts the sensor in place
Over the years, many sensors have been installed in Veberöd, including to test how to make efficient traffic counting by Future by Lund and Smart Villages. Often this has involved some climbing by ladder and when the sensor has to go higher up, the sets have been done using a skylift. But now there is a much simpler solution, thanks to Tim Malmgren at Smart Villages. Namely, he has created a special clamp with space for a sensor. The clamp is specially adapted for different poles by making a CAD drawing and then printing the clamp in a 3D printer.
- For me, it's about making technology more accessible, because if sensors are easy to set up, they can also start to be used more and contribute to smarter and safer societies, says Tim Malmgren. The idea came out of a concrete need - we needed a quick, easy and safe way to be able to mount sensors at higher altitudes.
With this mount, various sensors can be mounted directly from the ground in considerably less time, usually less than a minute. The clamp has already been tested for a while in Veberöd.
- It is expensive to use a skylift and you must not climb too high on ladders because it is dangerous, says Jan Malmgren of Smart Villages. Smart Villages aims to help municipalities create simple and sustainable digital solutions. This is a solution that we think is very good - faster, easier and much cheaper.
Once a clamp is made that fits the pole, it is easy to set it up. Under the clamp there is a thread that is screwed onto an extendable telescopic handle. The clamp is pressed into place on the post at the correct height and then the shank is unscrewed. In addition to a clip, there is also a magnet baked into the plastic so that the sensor should be securely attached to the pole. The telescopic shaft reaches up to about 4 meters, which is a sufficient height for the sensor not to attract attention and for no one to reach it without much effort.
IN Elaborator, a Horizon project that is being carried out across Europe, 31 new sensors are being installed around Mårtenstorget in Lund using the new technology. The project aims to create safer environments for road users and in many cases sensors are used to measure traffic.
- This is incredibly much faster and easier, says Anders Trana at Future by Lund. It's not just the set that becomes a completely different thing, now we can also easily adjust and change by hand.
Since the poles used in Elaborator have many different diameters, the clamps have been manufactured in seven different sizes and to fit into Lund, it has been manufactured in a “Lund green” shade.