Patent ID: 8781715

Claim:
A driving condition monitoring system for vehicles on a roadway, comprising: stationary mounting structures arranged proximate the roadway; activatable sensors located in said mounting structures in a vicinity of the roadway and apart from the roadway, said sensors being configured to generate information about the roadway or an environment around the roadway and communicate the generated information directly to a vehicle or occupant thereof when activated, each of said sensors including a measuring or detecting component that measures or detects a property or condition of the roadway or the environment around the roadway and an energy harvesting system that generates energy and provides the generated energy to said measuring or detecting component to enable it to measure or detect the property or condition of the roadway or environment around the roadway; and an initiating system that initiates a communication of the generated information directly from each of said sensors to the vehicle or occupant thereof when the vehicle is proximate said sensor by activating each sensor to communicate the generated information directly from the sensor to the vehicle or occupant thereof, whereby the generated information is not communicated from said sensors until initiated by said initiating system, said initiating system being arranged on the vehicle and configured to activate each sensor by transmitting an activation signal, and said sensors being configured to communicate the generated information directly to the vehicle or occupant thereof in response to the activation signal from said initiating system.