Rainfall can be very variable across different parts of a region such as Northern Germany. Conventional rain gauges are accurate, but are often distributed too sparsely to capture much of this variation. Having good information about precipitation is important for flood prediction and prevention, for example.
If moving cars could be used to measure rainfall the network density could be improved dramatically,” explains project-leader Uwe Haberlandt, who says the idea for RainCars emerged during a brainstorming session between geoinformatics researchers and hydrologists. With over 40 million cars in Germany alone, and with traffic increasing worldwide, the multi-disciplinary team might be onto a winner.
Now, with a lab equipped with a rain simulator, the researchers have been able to put their idea to the test. They placed cars with different wiper systems under the rain machine, which uses a sprinkler irrigation system with adjustable nozzles to simulate light to heavy rain, to find out exactly how wiper speed relates to rainfall intensity.
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