PAVEMENT MARKING TAPE INCORPORATING ADVANCED MATERIALS FOR IMPROVED VISIBILITY
A pavement marking tape has visibility-enhancing features for both humans and machines, including high-index-of-refraction reflective elements, quantum emitters, dichroic pigments, and passive, machine-readable emitting tags (e.g., RFID tags).
1 . A surface marking tape comprising
a substantially flat tape substrate;
a plurality of protrusions extending from a surface of the flat tape substrate;
a plurality of retroreflective, non-glass microspheres with a high index of refraction provided on at least one surface of each of the plurality of protrusions; and
an adhesive material layer coupling the plurality of microspheres to the at least one surface of the plurality of protrusions.
2 . The surface marking tape of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of microspheres are formed from at least one of alumina, sapphire, aluminum oxide, zirconia, titania, and bismuth titanate.
3 . The surface marking tape of claim 2 , wherein the microspheres are formed from titania doped with at least one of yttrium, yttrium oxide, or iron oxide.
4 . The surface marking tape of claim 1 , wherein the microspheres have an index of refraction of at least 1.7.
5 . The surface marking tape of claim 1 , further comprising at least one dichroic element configured to reflect a first color when observed from a first range of angles of view and to reflect a second color different than the first color when observed from a second range of angles of view.
6 . The surface marking tape of claim 1 , wherein
the protrusions have a top surface and side surfaces extending between the flat tape substrate and the top surface; and
the microspheres are provided on the side surfaces of the plurality of protrusions.
7 . The surface marking tape of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of microspheres have a floatation coating applied to at least portions of surfaces of the microspheres.
8 . The surface marking tape of claim 1 , wherein the adhesive material layer is a durable topcoat for the surface marking tape.
9 . The surface marking tape of claim 1 further comprising passive, machine-readable, markers incorporated within the surface marking tape.
10 . The surface marking tape of claim 9 , wherein the passive machine-readable transmitting markers are radio frequency identification tags configured to emit radio-frequency signals.
11 . A surface marking tape comprising
a substantially flat tape;
a plurality of protrusions extending from a surface of the flat tape;
a plurality of high-visibility, photoluminescent emitters provided on at least one surface of each of the plurality of protrusions;
an adhesive coupling the plurality of high visibility elements to the plurality of protrusions.
12 . The surface marking tape of claim 9 , wherein the photoluminescent emitters are quantum dots.
13 . The surface marking tape of claim 11 , wherein the photoluminescent emitters are formed of one or more of silicon, carbon, or graphene materials.
14 . The surface marking tape of claim 13 further comprising a dichroic pigment coupled by the adhesive to the plurality of protrusions.
15 . The surface marking tape of claim 14 , wherein the adhesive is a durable topcoat material.
16 . The surface marking tape of claim 15 , wherein the durable topcoat material further comprises a pigment.
17 . The surface marking tape of claim 9 , wherein the photoluminescent emitters emit light in a predetermined wavelength range.
18 . The surface marking tape of claim 17 , wherein absorption and emission of light by the photoluminescent emitters is substantially independent of a refractive index of a surrounding medium, so the emitted light appears substantially as bright over a range ambient environmental conditions.
19 . The surface marking tape of claim 12 , wherein the dichroic pigment is aligned within the adhesive to create lenticular images that have different patterns based on an angle of view.
20 . The surface marking tape of claim further comprising radio frequency identification tags adhered to a bottom surface the surface marking tape.