A Road Defect Detection System Using Smartphones

Sensors (Basel). 2024 Mar 25;24(7):2099. doi: 10.3390/s24072099.

Abstract

We propose a novel approach to detecting road defects by leveraging smartphones. This approach presents an automatic data collection mechanism and a deep learning model for road defect detection on smartphones. The automatic data collection mechanism provides a practical and reliable way to collect and label data for road defect detection research, significantly facilitating the execution of investigations in this research field. By leveraging the automatically collected data, we designed a CNN-based model to classify speed bumps, manholes, and potholes, which outperforms conventional models in both accuracy and processing speed. The proposed system represents a highly practical and scalable technology that can be implemented using commercial smartphones, thereby presenting substantial promise for real-world applications.

Keywords: CNN; automatic data collection; road defect detection; smartphone.