Sealing cracks in roadways ensures a road's structural integrity and extends the time between major repaving projects, but conventional manual crack sealing operations expose workers to dangerous traffic and cover a limited amount of roadway each day.
To address these challenges, the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) developed a prototype automated pavement crack detection and sealing system with funding from the Georgia Department of Transportation. In road tests, the system was able to detect cracks smaller than one-eighth-inch wide and efficiently fill cracks from a vehicle moving at a speed of three miles per hour.
"Our prototype system has proved in many ways that a commercial-scale automated crack sealing system is viable," said Jonathan Holmes, the GTRI research engineer currently leading the project, which began in 2003. "We demonstrated solutions to technical challenges -- including the high-speed firing of nozzles, automated crack detection and navigation -- in a real-time, limited-scale system."
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