IPENZ Transactions, Vol. 24, No.

1/GEN, 1997

Intelligent road-studs - lighting the paths of

the future
J T Boys1, PhD, FIPENZ, FRSNZ and
A W Green1, PhD, MIEE, Grad.IPENZ
A new concept in illuminated road-studs is described where electrical power is
magnetically coupled from wires buried in the surface of a road to drive electronic
circuitry in the stud. There is no physical contact between the wires and the stud,
so the system gives high reliability, robustness, and insensitivity to environmental
conditions while allowing the stud to produce highly visible lighting under all
driving conditions thereby allowing a new range of highway control options to a
traffic engineer. The paper discusses the studs operating principles, and its
interdisciplinary design and construction. It outlines some potential applications
for the stud and proposes further developments to give yet wider choice to roadway
systems designers.
Keywords: road studs - inductive power transfer - road lighting - traffic control
1

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Auckland,

Private Bag 92-019, Auckland
This paper is a revised version of one which received the Fulton-Downer Gold
Award at the 1996 IPENZ Conference, and was submitted for publication on 3
September 1996

1. Introduction
Roadway lighting systems are now widely accepted as indispensable for controlling traffic flow in a
wide number of applications. In general, such systems operate well above the road surface and use a
number of well known and widely accepted colours (for example red, amber, and green), with lights in
particular orientations to make the message to a driver clear and unambiguous thereby improving the
throughput of the road while enhancing safety aspects. On busy roads traffic is invariably moving in
lanes and again clear lane markings are essential. Exactly the same situation obtains at pedestrian
crossings and level crossings where, in the interests of all, the lighting systems must perform with the
highest possible reliability.
There are a number of disadvantages with aerial lighting systems. At extremely complex
intersections it can sometimes be difficult to know which lights are which; in strong glancing sunlight
reflections from the lights may make it almost impossible to tell which particular light is actually
illuminated; and, conversely, if the sun happens to be directly behind the light it may be extremely
difficult to see it. In addition to these problems a driver actually has to look away from the roadway to
see the lights and at critical times, particularly in unfamiliar circumstances, this can compromise the
security of the vehicle.
Lanes on roads are traditionally marked in a passive way with reflecting road-studs (cats-eyes) and
high visibility paint, often coupled with other reflectors on short posts at the sides of the highway.
These systems operate by reflecting a portion of the light from the vehicle headlights back to the driver
- they are completely passive and simply indicate their actual position on the road. In terms of
visibility they are best in dry conditions with single vehicles. On busy roads with dipped headlights
they are harder to see, and the range of visibility is dramatically reduced, while in wet conditions they
can become completely invisible - lost in the general glare of headlights and streetlights. Reflecting
systems are functionally inert in daylight and not particularly good at the critical sunrise/sunset times.
Recently some new powered road-studs have appeared as options for roadway designers - these
developments have taken place independently of the stud to be described in this paper but at essentially
the same time. These products and the new stud share the same advantage - the information that they
give to drivers comes from the roadway surface itself, which, of course, is exactly where the driver

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should be looking. Two alternative products are now available: a solar-powered stud that captures
energy from the sun during the day and then provides a light at night, and a stud powered by cables
buried in the road itself. The solar-powered stud is clearly only suitable in places which do get some
sunlight but a small battery is used to store energy so that the stud can operate without sunlight for a
week or so. The stud can indicate a number of conditions using coloured flashing lights including
whether or not the road surface is icy or treacherous (a flashing blue light), but it is necessarily very
low powered so that daylight visibility is poor. Strings of studs cannot be synchronised, so that a driver
can be faced with a roadway of independently flashing lights all indicating something - this can be
quite confusing. The alternative cable driven stud has buried wires and studs in the roadway in a very
significantly large trench. The wires are physically connected to the studs and the whole
interconnected assembly is then filled with the road-surfacing material. These studs are expensive and
have a significant installation and replacement cost. They do, however, have the capability of
indicating to a motorist whatever information should be required.
The new stud grew from work done here in New Zealand with Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) as a
technique for transferring power from one system to another with no physical connection between
them1,2,3. The technique is now accepted in materials handling applications, some people-moving
situations, and others 4,5. It has proved to be rugged and reliable. The specification for the new stud
was to have a stud powered by an insulated wire buried in the roadway in a groove or sawcut, 5 mm
wide by 20 mm deep, back-filled in the usual way with sand and epoxy. The studs were to fit within
existing (reflector) stud outlines. They would take power inductively from the buried wire and drive a
number of light-emitting diodes of the appropriate colour at a specified brightness. They would be
attached to the roadway surface by the conventionalbituflex adhesive and their position would be noncritical within +/- 5 mm horizontally and vertically. The studs would be unaffected by water, ice, or
the extremes of temperature likely to be found at the roadway surface.
This paper traces the development of the stud from this first specification to the present position.
The paper outlines how IPT works and how it is used to advantage here. It covers the design of the
stud, its electronic circuitry, its optics, its testing, and its installation. It also considers applications for
such studs and presents some preliminary observations relevant to such applications. Finally, the paper
discusses how the availability of such devices and derivatives thereto can enhance the options for traffic
flows on our roadways.

2. A brief overview of IPT

IPT is the name given to a power transfer technique where power is coupled across an air (or other
non-permeable material) gap by magnetic induction. As shown in Figure 1, for a current I1 flowing in
primary inductance L1 a voltage
V2 = jMI1

(1)

will be induced in inductance L2. Here M is the mutual inductance between L1 and L2, and is the
angular frequency. It should also be noted that there are no restrictions on these inductors and L1 in
particular can be simply a straight piece of wire. This induced voltage will resonate with the capacitor
to cause a voltage on the capacitor VC which is Q times higher than V2, where Q is the amplification
factor of the resonant circuit.

34

FIGURE 1: Inductive coupling from a buried wire to a tuned circuit.

In practice, C is chosen to be exactly resonant with L2 at the operating frequency so that

Q = R
L2

(2)

and the power transferred to resistor R is

P = |Q.V2|2 = QM2.I12
R
L2

(3)

In this development, R is the equivalent load resistor for the inductor L2 and in the road-stud situation
it represents the load on the circuit caused by the roadway stud circuitry and the lights that it is driving.
The power transferred can be increased by increasing the mutual inductance M, increasing the current
I1, increasing the operating frequency , or increasing Q. In a practical situation both a simple
magnetic coupling and a low current (I1) are highly desirable to keep the cost down so that high
operating frequencies are essential to get reasonable power levels. Increasing Q is a useful option but
values of Q>10 become too sensitive to component tolerance or errors to be usable. The mutual
inductance M also varies considerably from one stud location to another so that the equivalent resistor
R needs to be electronically varied to keep the power supplied matched to that required. (Note that a
reduction in R causes a reduction in Q so that the power transferred is reduced, and vice versa.) In the
extant situation this same electronic control is also necessary to vary the power level to allow for
dimming lamps, flashing lamps, or turning lamps completely off.
In practice, varying a resistor to match a power level to that required is electronically complex and
an alternative approach is used. The equivalent resistance is left constant and the excess power
transferred is stored by charging a capacitor. When the storage capacitor voltage reaches an upper
limit, the resonating inductor L2 is simply short-circuited so that no further power is supplied as Q
tends to zero; as the voltage on the storage capacitor then reduces, the short-circuit is removed. The
short-circuit itself ideally has no power loss yet allows infinitely variable control of the power to the
lights.

3. IPT in a road-stud
In using IPT in a road-stud there are a number of design considerations over and above simply making
it work. There must be minimum damage to the road surface, and the operation of the stud should be
clear and intuitively obvious so that no driver training is required. The stud should be fixed to the road
in a conventional way, it must be highly visible in all lighting and roadway conditions, and the loss of
one or more studs should not compromise the operation of those remaining. In consequence, the stud
design must be a highly coordinated activity balancing the mechanical shape, the magnetic interface,
the electronic circuitry, and the optics so that the performance of the stud can meet the standards of
acceptance and reliability required. These aspects are discussed in the following sections.

3.1 Mechanical design

To achieve the maximum possible driver acceptability it was decided to put all the circuitry for the stud
in the same package as that now used for conventional reflector studs. This decision put a severe space
restraint on the magnetic and electronic circuitry but it achieves the desired driver acceptability. It was
also decided that the method of attachment to the road surface would be with the conventional
bituflex - from the roadway contractors point of view this is ideal as all the required equipment
already exists, but again it means that the electronic circuitry must be able to survive at temperatures in
excess of 60oC. As outlined in Section 2, magnetic coupling to a secondary circuit requires a primary
conductor in close proximity - here it was decided that this conductor should be buried in the road
surface in a 5 mm by 20 mm deep sawcut backfilled with sand and epoxy. This technique is already
widely used for other wires in roadways (for example with traffic light sensors) and has been found to
be reliable while not weakening the road surface to a significant extent.
The degree of magnetic coupling (the mutual inductance M) with a wire buried completely below
the road surface and all the magnetic material contained within a conventional road-stud outline is

35

necessarily small, so at this point other considerations have to be taken into account. As outlined in
Section 2, power transfer can be increased by increasing the frequency, or by increasing the primary
current (I1) or by some combination of both of these. In these conditions, however, the voltage required
to power the buried wires will increase so that to drive long lengths (200 metres or more) of road-stud
lights from a single power supply, while staying within the voltage ratings of common components, the
primary inductance L1 must be kept as small as possible. In a practical implementation the loop area
of the buried cable is kept small by having the out and in wires for I1 in the same sawcut so that the
magnetic field from one wire is cancelled by the field from the other. Under these circumstances,
though, IPT is impossible as there is essentially no magnetic flux above the surface of the road to link
to the stud, so at the prescribed stud positions the two wires are separated by 30 mm for a distance of
150 mm to give a small field above the road. The separation is a vertical one - the trench is cut deeper
at these points but the 5 mm width is maintained. A plastic spacer is inserted between the wires to
maintain the spacing, and epoxy and sand are backfilled as before to give the in situ wire arrangement
shown in Figure 2. Under this arrangement the maximum wire size that can be used is 5 mm diameter
and allowing for 1 mm of insulation the active diameter is but 3 mm. As will be explained in Section
3.3 a polystranded Litz wire must be used in this application giving a maximum cross-sectional area of
5 mm2 so that a realistic current in the roadway conductors is only the order of 15A.

FIGURE 2. Placement of wires in the roadway sawcut (a) under the stud, (b) between the studs.

3.2 Magnetic circuit design

As discussed in Section 2 the power transfer from the buried conductors to the road-stud circuitry can
be maximised if the mutual inductance between the two circuits is improved - indeed with such a low
track current and a degree of variability in the positioning of the stud it is essential that this be done to
achieve the target performance. The road-stud has a low profile and consequently the space available
must be utilised as efficiently as possible. In the design, thin slabs of ferrite have been used for the
secondary pick-up coil. Ferrite is highly permeable and attracts flux to it so that a coil wound
around this ferrite intersects much more flux than would otherwise be the case - the presence of the
ferrite causes a distortion in the field around a wire, concentrating the flux at its particular location and
dragging in extra flux from the wire at each end of the ferrite. This end-effect is very important,
giving a flux concentration of more than a factor of three. In the extant design, two ferrite slabs and
two coils are used in combination to take the maximum possible advantage of the end effect and
minimise the cost of the ferrite, while leaving more room for the electronic circuitry.
A cross-sectional view of a road-stud showing the ferrites, the electronic circuitry, and the light
emitting diodes used for illumination is shown in Figure 3. Ferrite is a particularly brittle substance
and encapsulating it presents a degree of difficulty. The components are first potted in a thin rubbery
compound and then this protected assembly is potted in the road-stud with a hard epoxy to give the

36

stud strength and robustness.

FIGURE 3. Cross-sectional view of a road-stud, showing the essential components.

3.3 Electronic circuit design

The electronic circuitry for the road-stud comprises two separate parts. There is a power source which
generates the high frequency current in the buried wires, and there is the electronic circuitry in each
road-stud. These circuits are discussed in the following sections. They are linked by the magnetic field
around the buried wires. For reasons outlined above, a relatively high frequency of operation is
required to get reasonable power transfer across such loosely coupled circuits, and the design frequency
was chosen to be 40 kHz (being strictly correct such a frequency is classified as belonging to the VLF very low frequency - Band, but for a power system it is very high indeed compared with the more
common 50 Hz). At these higher frequencies electric current flows in the surface of a wire - the
phenomenon is called skin-effect - and to keep the losses down, wires with enhanced surface areas
must be used. These wires - called Litz wires - are composed of several smaller wires each individually
insulated and are constructed so that each individual wire occupies every possible position in the Litz
wire at some points along the wire so that the small wires share the current exactly. The wires need
special termination procedures to ensure that all the individual fine wires are connected. For the roadstud the Litz wires comprise 1250 strands of #40 AWG copper wire with poly-amide insulation so that
terminations can be made with a solder pot, as the poly-amide breaks down above 250C to leave a selffluxing wire. The wires are wrapped with mylar insulation and a tough plastic sheath 1mm thick.
3.3.1 The electronic power source
The power source generates a current of 14 amps at 40 kHz in the buried wires. As outlined the wires
are specifically intended to have some magnetic field above the road surface, so that to prevent spurious
transmissions (Radio-Frequency Interference or RFI) it is important that this current be harmonically
pure. Essentially pure sinewave currents are generated here using the resonant converter shown in
Figure 4. The inductance of the buried wire is tuned with a capacitor to make a resonant circuit and
the losses in this resonant circuit - resistive losses and stud loads - are supplied by the power
electronics devices. Thus most of the buried wire current comes from the resonating capacitor, keeping
the harmonics down - the measured distortion is much less than one percent.

tuning capacitor

FIGURE 4: Schematic circuit diagram for a power supply.

The circuit is driven from a voltage source through a current smoothing inductor and a balancing
transformer to two switching transistors. The collectors of these transistors have the tuned circuit (the
buried conductor and its tuning capacitor) connected between them. The voltage output from the
circuit is exactly related to the DC supply voltage by the equation

(4)

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and, as the 40 kHz current is directly proportional to this voltage, simply adjusting the DC voltage
allows the conductor current to be set to 10A as required. In further developments to be outlined in
section 6, varying the DC voltage allows the track current to be varied and provides a means of
signalling between the power generator and the road-studs.
3.3.2 Road-stud electronics
The road-stud electronics are shown schematically in Figure 5. The input to the circuit is the inductor
L2 tuned by capacitor C. The magnetic field couples energy into this inductor so that a resonance
occurs and the voltage across C increases; this voltage is rectified by diodes D1 to D4 and charges the
storage capacitor CS. A short-circuiting switch S is used to control the voltage on CS - if the voltage
increases to 10.5 V, S is turned on to collapse the resonance, as the voltage then falls below 9.5V S, is
opened again to start the charging process again. The rest of the circuit comprises a simple current
forcing switch-mode controller to turn a string of light emitting diodes (LEDs) on to give the stud its
illumination with a closely controlled current (20 mA), at high efficiency.

FIGURE 5: Schematic diagram of the road-stud circuitry.

Initial prototype circuits have been constructed with conventional PCB materials and components
but production circuits will use surface-mount components to reduce the size further, with a
corresponding increase in reliability, while at the same time allowing more circuitry to be added to the
stud to give a wider range of optional characteristics yet to be developed.

3.4 Stud optics

The high efficiency LEDs in the road-stud produce collimated beams of light using their own internal
optical systems. If these diodes are then encapsulated in epoxy this focusing is lost. Yet another
problem is that wear from motor vehicle tyres will dull any exposed surface so that again any lens
system must be protected against wear by abrasion. These two problems are solved as shown in Figure
3. The LEDs are a tight fit into a plastic lens - which is effectively a plane surface - so that no
encapsulating material comes in contact with the LED surfaces. This lens then has a plastic eyebrow
so that the abrasion does not occur as tyres do not come in contact with it.

4. Road-stud specifications
The road-stud housing is a modified version of an existing reflective stud. However, the filling of the
stud is more critical as it must contain the electronic circuitry while at the same time protecting it. A
special epoxy has been developed for this purpose and initial tests show that standard loading and
adhesion tests will be met. Sample production studs are now being tested to meet existing RPM
standards in Australia. A new set of standards will need to be established for these studs to ensure
safety and uniformity, as at present there are no standards for this class of roadway indicator.
Current studs use 10 yellow light-emitting diodes, each producing a light intensity of 8 candelas with a
beam width of 8 degrees. The centre of the beam is inclined upwards at an angle of 1.7 degrees above
the horizontal to give maximum visibility at a distance of 50 metres. These light-emitting diodes are
brighter than those used in car high-level brake light systems and are similar to those used in bus
destination signs. They are clearly visible in daylight.

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5. Road-stud applications
The illuminated road-stud offers traffic engineers a new control option to make roadways safer while
allowing for higher road usage. Some possibilities are outlined below, but by no means should this be
considered to be an exhaustive list. The studs can be used for:
Tidal flow in urban areas where it is impractical to have overhead gantries with arrows and
crosses. Illuminated studs would provide a movable yellow line - with corresponding movable
red and green lines if desired - to divide the roadway
Belisha Beacon pedestrian crossings can be enhanced using two lanes of studs leading up to the
crossing. An added safety feature would be that pedestrians cannot see the studs and will cross
only when the traffic stops. The studs can be flashed if required
Motorway ramp metering to provide vehicle pacing and merging with sequentially activated
studs
Motorway off-ramps to provide advance warning of exits

Vehicle-activated lights showing sharp bends or hazards

Railway level crossings with red flashing studs down lane lines to give an indicator visible from
600 metres

Roundabout control

Parking building vacant space guidance control

Replace some pole-mounted traffic signals

School bus stop-zones activated by time of day and buses

6. Future developments
The road-stud as developed produces a constant brightness, single colour light that can be turned on or
off by switching the track current on or off. In many circumstances, however, a wider range of lighting
possibilities is required. Here possible options include dimming, colour change between any two or
three colours from green, red, amber, or blue, lighting both ends of the stud, and so on. In even further
developments families of road-studs could be programmed to perform specific tasks to allow travelling
waves of lights giving controllable traffic flows at intersections or motorway on and off ramps, or
changing lane allocations. These options must be highly coordinated between all the road-studs and
can only be achieved if a communication system is overlaid on the existing buried wires to give the
studs instructions. Each stud contains its own microprocessor which interprets instructions and
responds to them, giving an interactive intelligent lighting system responsive to traffic flows and
external conditions
In practice, however, though a communication system is difficult to implement as the resonant
circuit in the stud provides significant interference in the immediate vicinity of the stud, so much so
that using a separate frequency for communications is not possible. The resonant nature of the buried
conductors also mitigates against using other frequencies. Here the problem has been solved using the
operating principle of the stud electronics itself. As described in Section 3.3.2, inductor L2 is
systematically short-circuited to control the voltage on the storage capacitor. The magnitude of the
short circuit current IS is the induced voltage from (1) divided by the coil reactance giving
IS = M .I1
L2

(5)

It is directly proportional to I1 so that modulating the buried conductor current provides a way of
passing information to the road-studs.
A practical implementation of this technique uses a ternary or three-state coding system to transfer
information to the road-studs. In the power supply the appropriate coding information is added to the
DC supply voltage to vary the magnitude of the buried current by +/-10 percent from its nominal value;
in the road-studs the information is retrieved and used to control the lighting conditions. Special
sequences of codes can then be used to programme the studs in the field so that studs can be

39

commissioned to a task at the time of placement on the road or even reprogrammed in situ later.
These features allow a very powerful set of lighting options to be used while minimising the numbers
of different stud types that must be manufactured.

40

7. Discussion
The new concept in road-studs has been developed to production prototype standard and has been
demonstrated to small groups of interested engineers in Australia, Europe, USA, Singapore, and other
countries. The stud appears to meet the performance that would be required in very diverse
applications and is already generating widespread expressions of interest. A large number of these
applications can in fact be met by a simple on/off stud, but the more versatile programmable one is
clearly needed for more sophisticated tasks.
As outlined, the development thus far has been concerned with the electronics, magnetics, and
optics in the stud. These issues are now at a very satisfactory stage. The programme now will
concentrate on further improving the performance while reducing the cost. An area of concern will be
the power supplies - to drive ever longer strings of lights while controlling them and synchronising
their operation with other power supplies driving other strings, and with other traffic control devices.
Traffic control features for the studs will be developed in conjunction with traffic engineers to
determine the range of lighting options needed in the intelligent studs and grouping these in families of
lights with appropriately engineered power supplies to achieve the desired result. This programme will
continue for some considerable time.

8. Conclusions
Intelligent road-studs, driven and controlled by inductive power coupled from wires buried beneath the
road surface, are now a practical proposition and generating widespread interest. The technology
achieves the environmental ruggedness required, while allowing a whole new range of traffic control
options for roadway designers and planners. To the road user the technology is unobtrusive and nonhazardous, with no risk of sparks or explosions even in the presence of inflammable materials. It
promises to make the highways of the future safer while assisting with higher traffic densities.

9. Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Harding Traffic Systems for suggesting this project and for their
enthusiastic support of it, and Fred Nassenstein and Colin Buckley for constructing prototypes of the
electronic circuitry in the road-stud. The assistance of Vega Industries with the optics design, and
Hella with the electronic circuit encapsulation in the road-stud, is also acknowledged.
The authors are particularly grateful to Clyde Mitchel of Harding Traffic Systems for his
suggestions and his knowledge of traffic control requirements, thereby greatly assisting the
development of the road-stud.

10. References
1. Green, A.W., and Boys, J.T. 1993 An inductively coupled high frequency power system for materials
handling applications. IPEC Conference, Singapore, 1993, Vol. II, pp. 821-826.
2. Boys, J.T., and Green, A.W. 1994 Inductively coupled power tranmission - concept, design and application,
IPENZ Conference Nelson, 1994, Vol. II, pp. 254-259.
3. Green, A.W., and Boys, J.T.1994 10 kHz inductively coupled power transmission - concept and control,
PEVD Conference, London, 1994 pp. 694-699.
4. Kloutz, K.W., Divan, D.M., Novotony, D.W., and Lorenz, R.D 1991.Contactless Power Delivery System for
Mining Applications. IEEE Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, pp. 1263 - 1269.
5. Kelly, A.W. , and Owens, W.R.1989 Connectorless Power Supply for an Aircraft Entertainment System. IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 4, No. 3: pp 348-354.

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