Road Material Identification and Condition Assessment Using Field Spectrometer

The progress of a nation is firmly supported by its road infrastructure. The national economy can benefit from better road infrastructure. Due to natural wear and tear as well as environmental factors, the roads degrade with time. To preserve the road’s serviceability and prevent more degradation, pavement condition evaluation should be addressed early on when the road begins to deteriorate. The traditional road assessment approach of road evaluation is still in use today. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to use this approach to evaluate the state of the roads. When a vast region has to be monitored, remote-sensing technology works well. When compared to in situ measurements, it is both fast and cheap. Road infrastructure may be quantitatively and comprehensively surveyed on a regular basis using remote-sensing techniques. Often pertaining to the chemical and mineral characteristics of the observed objects, hyperspectral remote-sensing images use several small contiguous spectral bands with comprehensive spectral information. Collecting data in the field are crucial to ensuring accurate hyperspectral imaging. Data from field spectrometers are commonly used to verify the accuracy of hyperspectral remote imaging. The goal of this research is to investigate road material identification and distress analysis using hyperspectral imagery. For this preliminary investigation, we used a high-resolution field portable spectroradiometer (SVC HR-1024) to measure the spectra of concrete and bitumen roads. The spectra are collected within the 350 to 2500 nm range. It is capable of differentiating between roadways of varying ages and conditions based on subtle spectral differences. This article presents the findings from a comprehensive analysis of the field spectrometer that was conducted prior to the use of hyperspectral imagery.