A Novel 0.1 mm 3D Laser Imaging Technology for Pavement Safety Measurement

Abstract

Traditionally, pavement safety performance in terms of texture, friction, and hydroplaning speed are measured separately via different devices with various limitations. This study explores the feasibility of using a novel 0.1 mm 3D Safety Sensor for pavement safety evaluation in a non-contact and continuous manner with a single hardware sensor. The 0.1 mm 3D images were collected for pavement safety measurement from 12 asphalt concrete (AC) and Portland cement concrete (PCC) field sites with various texture characteristics. The results indicate that the Safety Sensor was able to measure pavement texture data as traditional devices do with better repeatability. Moreover, pavement friction numbers can be estimated using 0.1 mm 3D data via the proposed 3D texture parameters with good accuracy using an artificial neural network, especially for asphalt pavement. Lastly, a case study of pavement hydroplaning speed prediction was performed using the Safety Sensor. The results demonstrate the potential of using ultra high-resolution 3D imaging to measure pavement safety, including texture, friction, and hydroplaning, in a non-contact, continuous, and accurate manner.

Reconstruction of sub‐mm 3D pavement images using recursive generative adversarial network for faster texture measurement

“…The laser-triangulation-based 3D Safety Sensor (as shown in Figure 3) was recently developed by the authors and used to collect the ground truth 0.1-mm pavement texture data at very low speed (< 1 mph) (Wang et al, 2022). Yang et al (2022) verified the accuracy of 3D Safety Sensor for texture measurement at very low speed by comparing it against another stationary high-precision device. The Safety Sensor is mounted on a vehicle's back to capture the HR 3D pavement texture data along the left wheel path on the selected asphalt and concrete sites.…”

“…Yang et al. (2022) verified the accuracy of 3D Safety Sensor for texture measurement at very low speed by comparing it against another stationary high‐precision device. The Safety Sensor is mounted on a vehicle's back to capture the HR 3D pavement texture data along the left wheel path on the selected asphalt and concrete sites.…”

Analysis of Road Surface Texture for Asphalt Pavement Adhesion Assessment Using 3D Laser Technology

“…Ref. [43] used a novel 0.1 mm 3D Safety Sensor to collect the pavement texture and estimated the pavement adhesion based on the detected texture characteristics by using an artificial neural network, ref. [44] conducted a field evaluation of pavement texture under actual traffic polishing using 3D areal parameters.…”