Abstract:
Continuous pavement health monitoring detects the early degradation of pavement
structures and extends the lifetime thereof by informing predictive maintenance actions.
The high cost of traditional pavement condition monitoring techniques however restricts
the frequent use of conventional pavement condition assessment methods. Therefore, a
need exists for a method that enables low cost, high coverage, and continuous monitoring
of pavement structures. This paper presents the specification, design, development and
testing of a low-cost wireless self-powered in-road sensing device that continuously
assesses pavement condition and communicates outcomes to a central maintenance
system. Unlike traditional systems, the proposed solution combines a suite of different
sensors to provide valuable insight into all major factors that affect pavement health.
Measurands, including the pavement deflection at the time of vehicular loading,
temperature, humidity, and moisture content are captured at different layers of the
pavement structure. Low-cost accelerometers accurately measure the acceleration of the
pavement material, and an on-board processor converts this information to a compact set
of pavement condition outcomes that are communicated to a hub using a LoRa sensor
network that combines long read range, low power consumption and sufficient
communication speed. A solar cell and battery provide continuous power to the system,
allowing 24/7 operation even in dense traffic conditions. Our results demonstrate that the
design objectives can be satisfied using affordable off-the-shelf electronic components,
justifying practical deployment of this concept.
