Pavement cracking measurements using 3D laser-scan images

Pavement condition surveying is vital for pavement maintenance programs that ensure ride quality and traffic safety. This paper first introduces an automated pavement inspection system which uses a three-dimensional (3D) camera and a structured laser light to acquire dense transverse profiles of a pavement lane surface when it carries a moving vehicle. After the calibration, the 3D system can yield a depth resolution of 0.5 mm and a transverse resolution of 1.56 mm pixel−1 at 1.4 m camera height from the ground. The scanning rate of the camera can be set to its maximum at 5000 lines s−1, allowing the density of scanned profiles to vary with the vehicle's speed. The paper then illustrates the algorithms that utilize 3D information to detect pavement distress, such as transverse, longitudinal and alligator cracking, and presents the field tests on the system's repeatability when scanning a sample pavement in multiple runs at the same vehicle speed, at different vehicle speeds and under different weather conditions. The results show that this dedicated 3D system can capture accurate pavement images that detail surface distress, and obtain consistent crack measurements in repeated tests and under different driving and lighting conditions.