Volumetric Pothole Detection from UAV-Based Imagery
Publication: Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 150, Issue 2
Abstract
Road networks are essential elements of a community’s infrastructure and need regular inspection. Present practice requires traffic interruptions and safety risks for inspectors. The road detection system based on vehicle-mounted lasers is also quite mature, offering advantages such as high-precision defect detection, high automation, and fast detection speed. However, it does have drawbacks such as high equipment procurement and maintenance costs, limited flexibility, and insufficient coverage range. Therefore, this paper proposes a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based alternative using imagery for automatic road pavement inspection focusing on pothole detection and classification. A slicing-based method, entitled the Pavement Pothole Detection Algorithm, is applied to the imagery after it is converted into a three-dimensional point cloud. When compared with manually extracted results, the proposed UAV-structure-from-motion (SfM) method and the associated algorithm achieved 0.01 m level accuracy for pothole depth detection and maximum errors of in volume evaluation for cases studies of both a road and a bridge deck.
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Data Availability Statement
All data and code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This project was made possible through the generous support of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant No. 642453. This work was supported by Research on Road Detection Method Based on UAV Image Reconstruction Technology (Item No. 20B266); Research on Monitoring Technology and Application of Bank Collapse Based on 3D Reconstruction (Item No. XSKJ2021000-13); and Research and Application of Efficient Road and Crack Defect Detection (Item No. 211076656073).
Author contributions: Siyuan Chen: formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims and supervision. Debra F. Laefer: writing–original draft and resources. Xiangding Zeng: writing–review and editing. Linh Truong-Hong: data curation. Eleni Mangina: formal analysis.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 150 • Issue 2 • May 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 6, 2023
Accepted: Oct 19, 2023
Published online: Jan 27, 2024
Published in print: May 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Jun 27, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Automation and robotics
- Benefit cost ratios
- Business management
- Construction engineering
- Construction management
- Engineering fundamentals
- Equipment and machinery
- Financial management
- Gravels
- Highway and road management
- Highway transportation
- Highways and roads
- Infrastructure
- Inspection
- Pavement condition
- Pavement surface roughness
- Pavements
- Practice and Profession
- Systems engineering
- Traffic engineering
- Traffic management
- Traffic safety
- Transportation engineering
- Unmanned vehicles
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