In today’s era of rapid technological development, the construction of smart cities has become an important global urban development trend. With the continuous emergence of advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence, the intelligent transformation of cities is profoundly changing people’s lifestyles and urban operation models. Against this grand backdrop, smart streetlights, as an important part of smart cities, are gradually coming into the spotlight and becoming key nodes in urban intelligent construction.

Smart streetlights are not merely a simple upgrade of traditional streetlights. They are comprehensive urban infrastructure that integrates various technical means such as advanced Internet of Things, sensors, and information technology. By applying advanced, efficient, and reliable power line carrier communication technology and wireless GPRS/CDMA communication technology, smart streetlights achieve remote centralized control and management of streetlights. They can not only automatically adjust the brightness according to conditions such as traffic flow, time, and weather by setting different scenarios, but also possess a series of intelligent functions, including remote lighting control, active fault alarm, anti-theft of lamp cables, and remote meter reading. The realization of these functions has greatly saved power resources, effectively improved the public lighting management level, and reduced maintenance and management costs.

The large number of streetlights in cities, as the most densely distributed urban infrastructure, provide convenient conditions for information collection and dissemination. In the future, smart streetlights will become an important source of information collection for the Internet of Things and a crucial component and key access point of smart cities. They can promote the implementation of smart municipal services and smart cities in the urban lighting business, thereby achieving a comprehensive improvement in urban and municipal service capabilities. In China, government streetlight management departments have long listed tasks such as optimizing streetlight management systems, effectively controlling energy consumption, and reducing maintenance and management costs as important parts of urban construction and put them on the agenda.

However, traditional smart streetlights still have certain limitations in function realization. For example, in the intelligent adjustment of lighting brightness, although they can make preliminary adjustments based on factors such as time and light, they lack accurate perception of real-time traffic flow and pedestrian conditions, resulting in sub – optimal allocation of lighting resources. The emergence of radar technology provides new ideas and methods to solve these problems.

Radar technology can endow smart streetlights with more accurate perception capabilities, enabling them to obtain real – time and accurate information about traffic flow and pedestrian dynamics in the surrounding environment. Based on this information, smart streetlights can achieve more intelligent lighting control, dynamically adjusting the brightness and lighting range according to actual needs, thereby achieving the goals of energy conservation and emission reduction and enhancing the lighting effect. At the same time, radar technology can also add more intelligent application scenarios to smart streetlights, such as intelligent traffic monitoring, vehicle violation capture, and pedestrian safety warning, further expanding the functional boundaries of smart streetlights and enhancing the intelligent management level of cities.

On the main roads of some cities, an intelligent lighting mode of “lights moving with the vehicle” has been realized through radar sensing technology. When a vehicle enters the radar detection range, the streetlights in front will light up one by one to provide lighting for the vehicle. After the vehicle leaves, the streetlights will gradually turn off. This lighting method is not only energy – efficient but also provides a more comfortable driving experience for drivers, effectively reducing visual fatigue during night driving.

With its powerful detection capabilities, radar can monitor various abnormal situations on the road in real – time. In sections with heavy traffic flow, radar can timely detect the occurrence of traffic accidents by continuously tracking the driving trajectories and speed changes of vehicles. Once abnormal situations such as sudden vehicle deceleration, emergency braking, or collisions are detected, the radar will immediately transmit this information to the control system of the smart streetlights. After receiving the abnormal signal, the control system quickly activates the early warning mechanism and realizes timely information transmission and response through the linkage with the traffic management system and emergency rescue departments. For example, it can automatically send accident alerts to nearby traffic police, notifying them of the specific location and on – site situation of the accident, so that the traffic police can quickly reach the scene for handling. At the same time, it can also send warning signals to vehicles behind to remind drivers to slow down and avoid secondary accidents.

In the field of security monitoring, radar also plays an important role. The radar on smart streetlights can be linked with security devices such as cameras to achieve all – round monitoring of the surrounding environment. The radar can detect abnormal human activities and object movements. When suspicious persons or abnormal situations are detected, it immediately triggers the camera to take pictures and record videos and transmits the relevant information to the security department. This intelligent security monitoring system has greatly improved urban security and public security management levels and effectively prevented and combated illegal and criminal activities. In some important areas and public places of cities, the security monitoring function of smart streetlights has become one of the important means to ensure urban security.

Radar can also be deeply integrated with the intelligent transportation system to achieve functions such as traffic flow monitoring and vehicle violation capture. Through the real – time monitoring of vehicles on the road, radar can accurately count the traffic flow and provide data support for traffic management departments to develop reasonable traffic guidance plans. When vehicles violate traffic rules such as speeding and running red lights, the radar and the camera cooperate to timely capture photos and videos of the violating vehicles, providing strong evidence for traffic law enforcement. This intelligent traffic management function has improved the efficiency and accuracy of traffic management and ensured the smooth flow of roads and traffic safety.