Laser-based system for highway pavement texture measurement

The texture of the highway is one of the major factors to the impact of road quality. The traditional method is to use a skid truck to measure the skid number, but in the course of the measurement, its speed is limited and frequent traffic slow down is inevitable. This paper presents a highway pavement texture detection system using position-sensitive device (PSD) with a laser transmitter. As one of non-destructive test tools, the laser texture sensor that can run at 178 kHz allows high-speed measurement, and is very sensitive to macro and micro texture. In order to reduce the influences from the surrounding area we have designed a PID compensation circuit to help improve the accuracy of the system. The outcomes of several prototype pavement texture devices have proved the measurement system´s feasibility and effectiveness. A measurement system with high-speed, high accuracy and low-cost is obtained.