The goal of the Road Nail is to improve safety and comfort on public roads and reduce death and injury rate resulting from road collisions due to low visibility.

Each Road Nail consists of sensors, wireless connectivity, energy harvesting and light marker as well as local intelligence. It is used to make visible the edge of the road in the front view of a moving car. The system does not need any equipment in the car and therefore works with current car fleet. It is powered autonomously by solar cell on the top of each devices.

Main impact of the Road Nail system is a reduction in traffic accidents by improving the road visibility during night and helping drivers adjust speed of vehicles accordingly.

While having similar benefit as road lighting, the installation (no wires) and the use (no electricity) are much less expensive. This enable the dissemination in much more area then traditional lighting. When applied to rural roads the Road Nail system increases mobility of people in small communities by providing a safer access to regional urban centers.

Other possible functions of the Road Nail system are: emergency alert, car accident detection, pedestrian detection, etc. It could also support cooperation with smart cars in the future.

This system could be also used for monitoring various traffic parameters which could then help understand traffic needs as well as the actual road usage during night and day, without additional cost. Final result would contribute to better safety and security on roads and surely would improve the road management.

The Road Nail device is an innovative integration of multiple solutions: sensors, wireless connectivity, intelligent processing, batteries and solar power supply. The cutting edge cooperative function is created by the large number of nail. Each device is a part of a larger distributed system creating a network of autonomous cooperating objects. This road safety system is based on spontaneous ad-hoc cooperation between Road Nail devices enabling their efficient deployment, installation and maintenance.

The Road Nail project is developed in cooperation with J-M Creativ.