Georgia Tech road repair in action
Repairing America’s roads is extremely time consuming and makes those of us not repairing them seethe with anger as roads are usually partially blocked off which backs up traffic making us late for work and ruins the rest of our day. In an effort to remove these bad feelings researchers from the Georgia Tech Research Institute, headed by Jonathan Holmes, have designed an automated crack detection and sealing system that repairs the road on-the-go.
The design utilizes a series of LED’s (in two colors) that are situated both parallel and perpendicular to the road to help illuminate the surface for a stereo camera which ‘looks’ for road cracks that need repaired. The camera takes two pictures of the road simultaneously and sends the information to a computer that uses an algorithm to analyze the information and produces a ‘crack’ map showing both the length and location of said cracks all within 100 milliseconds of taking the first picture. Once the location and crack size have been determined the computer then repairs the cracks using an automated valve system that uses a linear axis servo to position a series of nozzles (12 in all) to dispense the sealant that’s stored in a tank.
The entire system is situated on a trailer that’s pulled by a utility truck at the blistering speed of 3.1 miles per hour. Sure that might seem slow, but it’s definitely faster than traditional methods and cheaper too as it doesn’t require a lot of man power for the road repair. The system does have its share of problems though as testing showed that it correctly identified 83% percent of the cracks on a section of ‘test’ road but was confused when it encountered different features of the surface such as oil stains, lane stripes and debris. While country-wide implementation of the system is still a few years away, it certainly would alleviate some of the head-aches involved with the traditional ways road-patching which might enable us to get to work on time.
Cabe
