Travel way measurement system

• US 8,306,747 B1
• Filed: 01/17/2008
• Issued: 11/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Starodub, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Starodub, Inc.
• Inventors: Gagarin, Nicolas, Mekemson, James R., Scott, Michael L., Mills, Milton K., Oskard, Morton S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Cheung, Mary
• Assistant Examiner(s): Edwards, Jerrah
• Application Number:
  US12/009,255
• Time in Patent Office: 1,755 Days
• Field of Search: 701/220, 701/221, 701/223, 701/225, 701/514, 701/448, 701/494, 701/540, 342/22, 731/46
• US Class Current: 701/514
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 7/04 involving a vehicle which moves along the profile to be traced
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/885 for ground probing prospecting or detecting using electromagnetic waves G01V3/12
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/931 of land vehicles

Abstract

A mobile platform, sensors mounted on the mobile platform, computers, data storage devices, power system, data acquisition hardware, and software form a Travel Way Measurement System. The mobile platform with sensors mounted within and upon it, moves along a surface travel way and records data to determine an accurate location and geometry of the travel way surface, surface features, transverse profile and features along side the travel way surface, structures, signs, and other features above the travel way surface, and utilities, pavement thickness and properties, pavement condition, and bridge deck properties and condition below the travel way surface. The mobile platform and sensors can travel and collect data at up to 60 miles per hour or more. The data acquisition hardware and software protocols permit the synchronization of all the sensor outputs in the temporal and spatial domain or in any other domain resulting from numerical transformation of sensor outputs.

Claims

1. Travel way measurement system, comprising a platform with a position determining unit (PDU) mounted on a vehicle for indicating heading, pitch and roll of the vehicle, a computer mounted in the platform for recording heading, pitch and roll information from the PDU, distance measuring instruments (DMI) connected to the vehicle and to the computer for providing travel distance information to the computer, sensors mounted on the platform and connected to the computer for providing information of distances of the sensors above the surface of the travel way, a scanner mounted on the platform adapted for scanning around the vehicle transverse to a longitudinal axis of the vehicle on, over and adjacent to the surface of the travel way and connected to the computer for providing to the computer position range, angular position, and reflective signal strength information relative to the scanner and to the vehicle of objects along, over and away and adjacent to the travel way, whereby the computer determines and records precise locations of the platform along the travel way, precise positions of the platform in the travel way, and precise slopes and surface conditions of the travel way, and adapted for detecting edge of pavement, roadside profile, edge drop-off, shoulder, curbs, sidewalk, guardrails, roadside features, driveways, drainage facilities, pavement distress, vertical clearance, overhead features, surface roughness, and adapted for providing location referenced outputs of cross sections, visualizations, simulations, plan and elevation drawings, data for software, and 2D and 3D rendering.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer determines objects and measurements of the objects along, over, on, adjacent to and away from the travel way using information from the scanner.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the platform is the vehicle, the scanner is a scanning laser and the PDU is an inertial navigation unit (INU).

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the scanning laser scans relative to the platform and wherein the sensors comprise side sensors mounted on sides of the platform, and connected to the computer for sensing and recording heights of the sides of the vehicle above the surface of the travel way, front and rear sensors mounted on the platform and connected to the computer for measuring front and rear heights of the vehicle above the surface.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a ground penetrating radar (GPR) array mounted to the vehicle, the dedicated distance measuring (DMI) connected to the vehicle and to the GPR array for triggering the GPR array, the dedicated DMI and the GPR array connected to a GPR computing device for providing to the GPR computing device continuous information of a position of the vehicle of depths of subsurface layer interfaces below the surface of the travel way, whereby the GPR computer analyzes the surfaces below the travel way as surfaces of a travel way bed, utilities, culverts and infrastructure under the travel way.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the travel way is a highway and the computer takes information from the scanner to determine relative position of the vehicle with respect to the travel way.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising selective multispectral infrared cameras mounted on the vehicle for measuring thermal emissivity of the travel way in multiple spectral ranges, wherein the multispectral infrared cameras are connected to the computer for recording pavement thermal emissivity in the multiple spectral ranges.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a side mounted camera connected to the vehicle and a display visually accessible for edge of travel way surface position guidance and measurement.

9. A travel way bed measurement system of claim 1, further comprising a subsurface measurement system, mounted on the a ground penetrating radar (GPR) array mounted to the vehicle, a distance measuring instrument (DMI) mounted on the vehicle, the DMI and the GPR array connected to a computing device for providing longitudinal travel information of the vehicle position and continuous information of positions of surfaces and subsurface layer interfaces and utilities_ below the surfaces of a travel way of the vehicle, for recording of the subsurface layer interfaces and utilities and anomalies below the travel way as surfaces of a travel way bed, and supports, culverts and infrastructure under the travel way in relation to position of the vehicle along the travel way.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising step frequency inputs to the GPR array.

11. The system of claim 4, wherein the scanning laser rotates and scans 360°

in a plane normal to a longitudinal axis of the platform.

12. Travel way measurement method, comprising providing a vehicle, providing an inertial navigation unit (INU) mounted on the vehicle, sensing heading, pitch and roll of the vehicle with the INU, providing a computer mounted in the vehicle for recording heading, pitch and roll information from the INU, providing distance measuring instruments (DMI) connected to the vehicle, providing distance information from the DMI to the computer, providing side lasers and sensors mounted on sides of the vehicle, providing distances to a pavement from the side lasers and sensors to the computer, sensing and recording heights of the sides of the vehicle above a surface of a travel way, providing front and rear lasers and sensors mounted on the vehicle and providing distances from the front and rear lasers and sensors to the computer for measuring front and rear heights of the vehicle above the surface, providing a scanning laser mounted on the vehicle for scanning around, over, adjacent to and away from the vehicle, sensing range and angular position information relative to the scanning laser and to the vehicle of objects along, over, on and adjacent to and away from the travel way, and providing the range and angular information and reflective signal strength to the computer, whereby the computer determines and records precise locations of the vehicle along the travel way, precise positions of the vehicle in the travel way, and precise slopes, grades and surface and subsurface conditions of the travel way, and adapted for detecting edge of pavement, roadside profile, edge drop-off, shoulder, curbs, sidewalk, guardrails, roadside features, driveways, drainage facilities, pavement distress, vertical clearance, overhead features, surface roughness, and adapted for providing location referenced outputs of cross sections, visualizations, simulations, plan and elevation drawings, data for software, and 2D and 3D rendering.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising determining objects and measurements of the objects along, over, on, adjacent to and away from the travel way using information from the scanner in the computer.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising rotating the scanning laser 360°

in a plane normal to a longitudinal axis of the vehicle.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising providing a ground penetrating radar (GPR) array on the vehicle, triggering the GPR array with the DMI, providing information from the DMI and the GPR array to the computing device, providing to the GPR computing device information of a position of the vehicle of depths of layered surface interfaces below the surface of the travel way, and analyzing with the computing device the layered surface interfaces below the travel way as surfaces of a travel way bed, utilities, anomalies, culverts, bridges and infrastructure under the travel way.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising providing selective multispectral infrared cameras (MIC) on the vehicle, providing information from the MIC to the computer, and measuring and recording pavement thermal emissivity in the computer.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising providing a side mounted camera on the vehicle, providing a display visually accessible to a driver, and providing on the display an image of edge of travel way and for edge of travel way position measurement.

18. The travel way measurement method of claim 12, further comprising providing mounting one or more cameras on a platform, providing a sequence of one or more monoscopic images in each camera, or stereoscope images in one or more pairs of cameras or in multiple cameras included in the system, acquiring a set of synchronized images tagging each image with attitude and position information of the platform using the attitude and position information and reconstructing 3-D geometry of all relevant features of interest in the field of view using principles including photogrammetry, holography or other imaging techniques.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising fusing the reconstructed imaging with a scanning output from a scanning laser system and vehicle trajectory for redundancy.

20. A travel way bed subsurface measurement method, comprising providing a motorized travel way vehicle, providing a ground penetrating radar (GPR) array on the vehicle, providing a distance measuring instrument (DMI) on the vehicle, providing a computing device on the vehicle, connecting the DMI and the GPR array to the computing device, providing longitudinal travel information of the vehicle position by the DMI, providing continuous information of positions of a surface and of subsurface layer interfaces below the surface of a travel way of the vehicle, analyzing and recording of subsurface layer interfaces below the travel way as surfaces of a travel way bed, and supports, culverts, bridges or infrastructure under the travel way in relation to position of the vehicle along the travel way.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising providing step frequency inputs to the GPR array.

22. A travel way measurement system comprising a ring laser gyroscope (RLG) based inertial navigation unit (INU), a scanning laser, pitch reference lasers on front and rear, cross slope reference lasers on left and right side, forward looking cameras for stereoscopic imaging, step frequency ground penetrating radar (SF GPR) array, a GPS (nationwide differential or high accuracy nationwide differential) and distance measuring instruments (DMI) for determining three dimensional reconstruction of a travel way surface, alongside, above, and below the travel way surface, wherein the RLG INU and pitch reference lasers on front and rear are provided for determining travel way surface grade and location relative to the vehicle and the travel way, the scanning laser reflective signal strength provides recognition of surface lane markings, the scanning laser provides input for measuring lane wander position within a travel lane relative to vehicle trajectory and lane width for three-dimensional reconstruction of the travel way, the scanning laser provides travel way surface, side, and above travel way surface feature recognition, feature dimensions, and three-dimensional location relative to the vehicle and the travel way, the scanning laser provides_above travel way surface vertical clearance measurement and location relative to the vehicle and the travel way, and the scanning laser provides longitudinal construction based on successively recognized features and their location in two dimensions on a horizontal plane for further two-dimensional feature pattern recognition within the three dimensional measurements of the system, and adapted for detecting edge of pavement, roadside profile, edge drop-off, shoulder, curbs, sidewalk, guardrails, roadside features, driveways, drainage facilities, pavement distress, vertical clearance, overhead features, surface roughness, and adapted for providing location referenced outputs of cross sections, visualizations, simulations, plan and elevation drawings, data for software, and 2D and 3D rendering.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the cameras are video cameras, and the video cameras provide monoscopic and stereoscopic video image inputs for measurement of lane wander and width where pavement lane markings, longitudinal pavement joints, seams or other recognizable longitudinal features are present, and provide monoscopic video image processing of an image single horizontal scan line method for measurement of lane wander and width where pavement lane markings or longitudinal concrete pavement joints are present, and providing stereoscopic imaging of travel way features providing location referencing relative to vehicle and synchronized to the three dimensional construction of the travel way.

24. The system of claim 22, further comprising providing three-dimensional reconstruction, a travel surface including horizontal alignment, vertical alignment, and travel surface cross slope, three-dimensional reconstruction of a travel wayside including roadside profile and roadside features, inertial profiling for ride quality measurements using the three-dimensional reconstruction of the travel surface, and within wheel path macrotexture/inertial profile height measurement lasers for vertical profile.

25. The system of claim 23, further comprising providing common mid-point (CMP) implementation for dielectric material calibration using alternating pairs of antennas and multiple frequency emissions of a SF GPR antenna array statically or when the vehicle is moving at up to highway speeds, providing subsurface dimensional measurement and material determination and subsurface feature recognition and orientation and subsurface layer interfaces using a SF GPR antenna array for three-dimensional continuous reconstruction of the travel way subsurface.

26. The system of claim 23, further providing the SF GPR antenna array data preprocessing in preparation for application of modified GPR processing techniques, providing subsurface feature three-dimensional reconstruction below a travel way surface relative to the vehicle and the travel way using adjacent SF GPR scans and the travel way measurement system three-dimensional reconstruction of the travel way, and providing a SF GPR DMI encoder output additional to a primary travel way measurement system computer for time and distance synchronization with other travel way measurement system sensors.

27. The system of claim 23, further comprising providing SF GPR height reference laser for dynamic height calibration of dielectric property measurements, providing travel way surface thermal emissivity measurement with three dimensional location relative to travel way measurement system vehicle and the travel way, and providing a side mounted camera connected to the vehicle and a display for edge of travel way position relative to a vehicle positioning and guidance in harsh travel way alignment environments for data quality control/assurance.

28. The system of claim 22, wherein the (RLG) (INU) is a FAA RNP-10 capable Ring Laser Gyroscope or better based INU.