Development of automated inspection system for highway surface distress

An automated system is developed and described for the inspection of the surface distress of highway pavements in this paper. The system comprises of four modules: artificial illumination module, image acquisition module, sync control module, data storage and analysis module. The system is capable of collecting and analyzing highway cracks with high-resolution digital images. The system can carry out crack surveys at a nominal speed of 72km/h with full coverage of pavement surface. Crack recognition is performed offline. The prototype has been tested in laboratory conditions and completed a survey of about 15,000km real road at normal running speed (72km/h).