Advancements in Profiler Certification

Details

• Creators:
  Karamihas, Steven ; Borthakur, Abhik
• Corporate Creators:
  Illinois Center for Transportation
• Corporate Contributors:
  Illinois. Department of Transportation ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Pavement surface course
  • Longitudinal profile
  • Inertial forces
  • Benchmarks
  • Cross correlation
  • Certification
  • Accuracy
  • Instruments for measuring roughness
  • Smoothness
  • Testing
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA-ICT-26-013
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.36501/0197-9191/26-015
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  Final Report 8/1/24-9/15/26
• Corporate Publisher:
  Illinois Center for Transportation
• Abstract:
  Repeatable, accurate, and reproducible measurement of a pavement's longitudinal profile is essential to supporting state and federal efforts related to the functional quality of the road system. A key ingredient to ensuring repeatable, accurate, and reproducible profile measurements is a robust profiler certification program that is based on AASHTO R 56, "Standard Practice for Certification of Inertial Profiling Systems." Under this standard, operators of inertial profilers are tested on their ability to operate the equipment and collect high-quality profile data. In recent years, the technology for inertial profilers has advanced to allow for stop-and-go operation, which is not fully addressed in the current version of AASHTO R 56. The current study was conducted to support the implementation of updated profiler certification methods that, in turn, yield high-quality measurements of roughness throughout a pavement's life. The study featured a national profiler roundup at the Illinois Certification and Research Track in the fall of 2024. This pilot certification event included 42 profilers operating on six pavement surfaces, followed by R 56 cross-correlation analysis of the collected profile data and comparison to the R 56 repeatability and accuracy standards. The testing included certification of vehicle-mounted profilers for constant-speed operation, certification of profilers for urban and low-speed operation, and certification for walking-speed profilers. This report details the profiler roundup and results and provides recommendations for advancing certification procedures and protocols in the future.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  R27-263
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/93210/dot_93210_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 10.42 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:2db52d893ee097a16e220a234c5bcc03585e7cae567a3a34fbb839c3472b6388d2b37d40646f0444b1ae06d6d017ad321d22117c666388f8a02555521691abd1