Intelligent pothole repair vehicle

Abstract

This thesis presents an endeavor to design and construct a prototype of an automated road repair vehicle called the Intelligent Pothole Repair Vehicle (IPRV). The IPRV is capable of automatically detecting and filling potholes on road surfaces without operator assistance. An easy-to-construct mechanical means of pothole detection was employed to reduce costs and complexity that have thus far been the primary disadvantage of automated road repair vehicles. A network interface to an Ethernet was designed based on the transmission control protocol (TCP) to enable remote operability of the IPRV. A laptop computer was used onboard the IPRV for control and interfacing using a data-acquisition card installed on it. The Visual Basic® programming language and the Windows application programming interface (API) were used for all the programming requirements of this thesis. The IPRV employs feedback mechanisms for position control and path following. Operation has been designed to incorporate safety mechanisms that ensure that the IPRV automatically stops in the case of a loss of communication link or large network delays. Experiments were performed to test and calibrate the IPRV. The IPRV was designed to detect potholes that have a maximum depth greater than 2 cm.