Network-Level Guardrail Extraction Based on 3D Local Features from Mobile LiDAR Sensor
Publication: Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering
Volume 36, Issue 6
Abstract
Guardrails are critical boundary infrastructures protecting against road departures and traffic collisions. The presence and condition information of in-service guardrails are essential for transportation agencies to perform necessary repair or replacement operations on time. Unfortunately, most current practices still rely on manual field surveys or windshield inspections that can be time-consuming, labor-intensive, and subjective. This study proposes an automated, network-level guardrail detection and tracking model based on 3D local features captured in mobile LiDAR data. The 3D local features, including corrugation, vertical profile, connectivity, and continuity of the guardrails, are introduced to extract guardrail status through four key sequential and corresponding steps, including Difference of Normals (DoN)-based segmentation, vertical profile-based filtering, guardrail-associated point re-population, and guardrail tracking. The proposed method is evaluated in two sections on State Route 113 and State Route 9 in Massachusetts. It shows promising performance with high precision rates of 95.6% and 95.5% and excellent length covering rates of 97.9% and 100.0%, respectively. The proposed method will provide a reliable and efficient means for transportation agencies to inspect and evaluate their critical guardrail infrastructure on a network level.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This research was undertaken as part of MassDOT Research Program with funding from Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), United States of America State Planning and Research (SPR) funds. The authors are solely responsible for the accuracy of the facts and data, the validity of the study, and the views presented herein.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering
Volume 36 • Issue 6 • November 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 16, 2022
Accepted: Jun 14, 2022
Published online: Aug 30, 2022
Published in print: Nov 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Jan 30, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Barriers (by type)
- Detection methods
- Domain boundary
- Engineering fundamentals
- Guardrails
- Highway and road management
- Highway barriers
- Highway transportation
- Highways and roads
- Infrastructure
- Lifeline systems
- Mathematics
- Measurement (by type)
- Methodology (by type)
- Models (by type)
- Protective structures
- Sensors and sensing
- Structural engineering
- Structures (by type)
- Three-dimensional models
- Tracking
- Traffic engineering
- Traffic management
- Transportation engineering
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