Feasibility of Mobile Laser Scanning towards Operational Accurate Road Rut Depth Measurements

This paper studied the applicability of the Roamer-R4DW mobile laser scanning (MLS) system for road rut depth measurement. The MLS system was developed by the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI), and consists of two mobile laser scanners and a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-inertial measurement unit (IMU) positioning system. In the study, a fully automatic algorithm was developed to calculate and analyze the rut depths, and verified in 64 reference pavement plots (1.0 m × 3.5 m). We showed that terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data is an adequate reference for MLS-based rutting studies. The MLS-derived rut depths based on 64 plots resulted in 1.4 mm random error, which can be considered adequate precision for operational rutting depth measurements. Such data, also covering the area outside the pavement, would be ideal for multiple road environment applications since the same data can also be used in applications, from high-definition maps to autonomous car navigation and digitalization of street environments over time and in space.