Laser Crack Measurement System for Pavement-Management Sytems

Pavement-management systems (PMS) can work effectively only when they are constructed by organically combining all activities concerned with road pavement (planning, design, construction, maintenance, rehabilitation, evaluation, economic analysis, and research) and the data bank [1]. Then, the most important items are the establishment of a serviceability index, which represents pavement quality, and a prediction of performance, which is represented by the relation between time (and/or traffic) and the index. Pavement quality consists of two primary factors: riding quality and skid resistance. The factors influencing riding quality are pavement distress and/or roughness. Three major factors of pavement distress are cracking, rutting, and†¦show more content†¦Therefore, measuring the macro texture is one of the essential components in pavement management applications. The requirements for acquiring these factors are the following: (1) That data-acquisition cost is as cheap as possible; (2) that data analysis can be done in a short time; and (3) that data acquisition doesnt influence the speed of other traveling vehicles, in particular on roads with heavy traffic [2]. Pavement surface distress measurement is an essential part of a pavement management system (PMS) for determining cost-effective maintenance and rehabilitation strategies. Visual surveys conducted by engineers in the field are still the most widely used means to inspect and evaluate pavements, although such evaluations involve high degrees of subjectivity, hazardous exposure, and low production rates. Consequently, automated distress identification is gaining wide popularity among transportation agencies [6]. With the advancement of 3D sensor and information technology, a high-resolution, high-speed 3D line laser imaging system has become available for pavement surface condition data collection. With the advances in sensor technology, a 3D line-laser-imaging-based pavement surface data acquisition system has become available. The Laser Crack Measurement System (LCMS) [7] can collect high-resolution 3D continuous pavement profiles for constructing pavement surfaces. The objective of