Despite the huge public budget effort (6.000M€/year) for road pavement maintenance, the European road network (5.5M km) is not in an acceptable condition. Current pavement maintenance strategies are mainly based on corrective maintenance which is an inefficient and costly approach, with negative impact on pavement service life and road safety, and also on the environment.
In order to be able to implement a maintenance strategy based on preventive operations of much lower cost carried out at the optimal moment (predictive maintenance), it is necessary to have continuous and accurate information of the pavement condition, something that is not possible at present due to the high cost of current inspection services.
PAV-DT is a disruptive technology that can be installed in any customer vehicle (e.g. public road administrators and concessionaires or construction companies on performance-based maintenance contracts) in order to convert these vehicles into a very low-cost real-time pavement inspection equipment through its ordinary circulation. Additionally, thanks to our advanced algorithm and a cloud-based platform, customers will be able to access the latest available information on the pavement condition at any moment and receive information on which maintenance actions are really required, and exactly where they should be applied and when is the best moment to deploy a truly cost-effective maintenance strategy.
Project Facts
Acronym |
EMAPs |
|---|---|
Duration |
08/2019 to 08/2021 |
Programme |
GSA Grant
|
Project Methodology
Proposed Element of Innovation
Current State of the Art
Proposed Element of Innovation
&
Current State of the Art
Development of a compact multi sensor aerodynamics optimised hardware
Most of the platforms used in TomTom cars (Figure 4 a) as well as by Google or HERE are built up by the addition of the different sensor elements (GNSS antenna, IMU block, LiDAR and cameras). This straightforward integration method makes the platforms heavy (hundreds of kg), very expensive, bulky and environmentally unfriendly (significant drag coefficient). Hence it is not mass-market compatible.
Development of a multi-constellation multi-frequency SDR receiver for premium mass market
The great majority of today GNSS mass-market receivers are single frequency constellation and mostly GPS based receivers.
RF front end Development of an E6 ready solution in preparation of freely broadcasted PPP solutions
The great majority of today GNSS mass-market receivers are single frequency constellation and mostly GPS based receivers.
3D map of urban environment through low cost low power consumption cameras
LiDAR sensor is currently used to sense the local environment of the vehicle. Although this technology solution has been demonstrated and validated in a real urban environment, due to its cost and power consumption, it remains unfeasibility to embed a LiDAR sensor for a mass-market product.
New innovate data hybridisation between GNSS, IMU, visual odometry to improve accuracy, integrity and availability
Most of the mass market products use the GNSS receiver alone to derive a position, velocity, timing solution. INS/GNSS loosely coupled integration approaches are also proposed on a couple of premium mass-market products.
NLOS detection and downweighing or exclusion
SNR (C/N0) based-only algorithms are implemented in current receivers, whereas proofs of concept have been made considering local 3D mapping.
High definition maps stored in a cloud-based system
The proprietary maps of TomTom (for instance) are stored in TomTom data centres in their premises making the dissemination slow and problematic for tomorrow applications (autonomous driving).
Smart electrical power management
The problematic of power management is one of the current limiting factors towards the deployment of mass-market IoT objects. Battery lifetime and battery management are the most significant to determine the lifetime of the connected device.
Enhance EN16803 standard to take into account hybridized GNSS device
Hybridized GNSS device is not well adapted to “Record & Replay” standardization assessment. So far the European norm EN16803 provides regulation for the GNSS module only.