Development of an automated airport pavement image collection system

Abstract

Airport pavement maintenance is an extremely important link in any airport pavement management system. How to quickly and effectively perform pavement surveys and data collection at today's very busy airports, while minimizing disruption to the airport's normal operation, is a major issue in airport pavement maintenance management research. This study uses a van to perform photographic surveys, and employs a global positioning system (GPS), geographic information system (GIS), image caption device, and the audio acquisition method to develop an automated airport pavement image collection system. This system currently is able to display a pavement image, slab name, and damage location coordinates on the same screen, and can automatically acquire a picture of the damaged slab. Because the system can greatly speed up pavement surveys, and the image can be stored into each slab's database of pavement management system, it should be extremely useful in airport pavement maintenance work.