Development and identification algorithm for horizontal alignment using attitude and positional data of vehicle

Abstract

In order to evaluate road safety and manage roads, highway geometric information is necessary. Most highway geometric information is acquired from drawings; however, highway drawings are not always available and even when highway drawings are available, they may not match actual conditions due to subsequent overlay or rehabilitation of the road. To acquire road information for such sections, generally Global Positioning System (GPS) measurement or total station has been used, but this approach is not only highly time-consuming but is also risky, as it involves taking measurements on a road that has moving traffic. Therefore, the Korea Institute of Construction Technology (KICT) developed a survey vehicle, several sensors such as GPS and Inertial Navigation System (INS). The survey vehicle can acquire the positional and attitude data of the vehicle rapidly through the sensors. In this research, a horizontal analysis algorithm, which can analyze highway horizontal geometric information, was developed using the positional and attitude data from the survey vehicle. The algorithm includes the ability to distinguish between tangent and curve sections and can extract highway horizontal geometric information such as transition curve parameters, circular curve radii, center coordinates, and length. The algorithm was applied to the field for verification.