Rural Road Surface Extraction Using Mobile LiDAR Point Cloud Data

Abstract

The existing roadway infrastructures are mostly archived with two-dimensional (2D) drawings that lack the possibility for three-dimensional (3D) interpretation and advanced 3D analysis. The mobile LiDAR system (MLS) is gaining popularity in 3D mapping applications along various types of road corridors. MLS achieves the highest data quality and completeness among the traditional roadway data collection methods. The rural roads in different countries especially in India form a substantial portion of the road network. Therefore the proper maintenance and road safety analysis of rural roads are recommended activity, which could be addressed using detailed 3D road surface information. The absence of raised curb at road boundary, and presence of complexity, heterogeneity and occlusions along the rural roadway settings restrict the use of existing studies for road surface extraction using MLS point cloud data. Therefore considering the above requirement, this research paper proposes a two-stage method. The first stage extract planar ground surfaces which are further used to filter road surface in the second stage. Global properties of road, that is, topology and smoothness and its radiometric response to laser beam of MLS are used in the second stage. MLS point cloud data of rural roadway were used to test the proposed method. The road surface points were accurately extracted without being affected by the absence of raised curb and hanging objects over the road surface, that is, tree canopies and overhead power lines. The quantitative assessment of the proposed method was performed in terms of correctness, completeness and quality, which were 96.3, 94.2, and 90.9%, respectively.