Design and Implementation of Smart Inertial Profilometer System for Road Quality Assessment

Abstract

Roads are one of the most essential element in maintaining the socioeconomic backbone of any region due to their facilitation of mobility, connectivity, social integration, and regional development. For growing urban cities like Karachi, Pakistan, accurate and precise monitoring of road health is vital for economic and infrastructural growth. This paper presents the design of a highly cost-effective, power-efficient, IoT-enabled Road Health Monitoring System (RHMS) for real-time quantification of the International Roughness Index (IRI). The study details the node architecture, including essential modules, sensors, and BMS, as well as their integration and deployment in the field. Results of the conducted experiment are presented for IRI calculation, power consumption, and device reliability. The developed system can be deployed on a large scale in dense urban regions with intricate transportation networks to realistically analyze road conditions, identify efficient routes, and address repair demands, thereby enabling the construction of sustainable socio-political policies for urban planning.