The UMTRI Engineering Systems Group (ESG) and the Illinois Certification and Research Track (ICART) hosted a certification “round-up” of more than 40 road profile measurement systems from all around the U.S.
The UMTRI Engineering Systems Group (ESG) and the Illinois Certification and Research Track (ICART) hosted a certification “round-up” of more than 40 road profile measurement systems from all around the U.S. Participants included state and Federal highway agencies, equipment manufacturers, paving contractors, and research organizations. Equipment travelled to the round-up from as far away as Connecticut and Nevada. The UMTRI-ESG team made the precision reference measurements that all of these participants were compared to.
The ICART is a facility designed to test the accuracy of systems that measure roughness of our roadways. In the round-up, road profile measurements from participating systems were compared to road profiles measured by the UMTRI/FHWA Benchmark Profiler (BP). The BP is a walking speed robotic measurement system. It was developed at UMTRI to produce highly accurate measurements of road profile as a standard for comparison to other profile-measurement systems. ESG upgraded the BP in preparation for the round-up and developed a more flexible and efficient replacement van-based system, called the Urban and Low-Speed Profiler (ULSP).
Accurate measurement of road profile is needed to accurately calculate the International Roughness Index (IRI), and to learn what contributes to its roughness. The federal government and state DOTs use these measurements to allocate resources to road construction and maintenance. The IRI is a standardized scale for road surface roughness that is used worldwide by highway agencies to assess the ride quality of a roadway. The IRI was developed at UMTRI under the auspices of the World Bank and the National Academy of Sciences.
The work included upgrades to the BP and ULSP, and their use to obtain detailed measurements of six pavement test sections at ICART. The team included UMTRI staff Mark Gilbert, Ken Winzeler, Nicholas Krueger, Mich Rasulis, Dan Huddleson; visiting researcher Steve Karamihas; and Abhik Borthakur from Applied Pavement Technology.