The Invisible Eye—A Security Architecture to Protect Motorways

Abstract

There have been proposals and even some successful deployments (by official bodies) of various road safety and traffic control systems. Emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Image Processing have found effective uses for developing the same. Although road security hasn’t been considered a very pushing topic. Particular motorways hold severe significance when it comes to a nation; security concerns. And hence it is very crucial for these motorways to have security systems in place and sometimes even have officials deployed for checking all passing vehicles which seem vulnerable to them using barriers and other equipment. Two peculiar problems that come into the picture when considering road security are first, lack of availability of automated, intelligent and feasible systems on motorways that can detect vulnerabilities in passing automobiles and second, knowability and visibility of any security mechanism used for checking the vehicles is an easy task for anyone traveling by the road under surveillance. The prior makes it easy for malevolent individuals (one’s carrying any illegal weapons, equipment, etc.) to escape and the latter makes them well aware about which security-checks they will have to tackle to surpass the checking zones without being caught red-handed. Hence need for a system which eliminates these two problems becomes vital to increase the security of motorways. This chapter introduces an intelligent cop assisting system TIE (The Invisible Eye). The system senses parameters that aren’t direct knowable by anyone at their first glance on the vehicle like weight, etc. and make them available to the security personnel(s) deployed to check those vehicles. Also, the system would provide a vulnerability index and it can be deployed in an unnoticeable way.