OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUTOMATION IN PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE

Abstract

Maintenance and rehabilitation of pavements in Canada and the United States represents a major transport expenditure. The money is spent on a recurring cycle of activities including data acquisition, evaluation, program development, and road work. Development of automated methods for the first three activities has been extensive. Development of automated methods for the fourth activity, road work, has not been extensive, and the opportunity for automating road work activities is only now being recognized. Automation has the potential of improving cost effectiveness, productivity, quality of work, and safety. This paper explores the potential of automating maintenance work. First, the maintenance process is reviewed and different levels of automation are defined. Then, an approach to automation opportunity identification is described and is used to identify key opportunities. Developments to date are reviewed, and a specific case application, a robotic pavement crack filler, is described in detail including the elements and consideration that went into its design. Institutional and practical impediments to automation are also discussed. It is concluded that there are significant opportunities for maintenance automation in traffic control, crack routing and sealing, surface patching, pot hole patching, surface recycling and milling, and chip and slurry sealing. Successful development of automated systems will require a coordinated commitment on the part of both developers and users. Automated systems development should be encouraged because of the large potential benefits involved, but thorough economic evaluations should be performed prior to specific implementation efforts. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD Abstract no. 807788.