SENSORS, cilt.23, sa.22, ss.1-19, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
In the context of road transportation, detecting road surface irregularities, particularly
potholes, is of paramount importance due to their implications for driving comfort, transportation
costs, and potential accidents. This study presents the development of a system for pothole detection
using vibration sensors and the Global Positioning System (GPS) integrated within smartphones,
without the need for additional onboard devices in vehicles incurring extra costs. In the realm of
vibration-based road anomaly detection, a novel approach employing convolutional neural networks
(CNNs) is introduced, breaking new ground in this field. An iOS-based application was designed for
the acquisition and transmission of road vibration data using the built-in three-axis accelerometer and
gyroscope of smartphones. Analog road data were transformed into pixel-based visuals, and various
CNN models with different layer configurations were developed. The CNN models achieved a
commendable accuracy rate of 93.24% and a low loss value of 0.2948 during validation, demonstrating
their effectiveness in pothole detection. To evaluate the performance further, a two-stage validation
process was conducted. In the first stage, the potholes along predefined routes were classified based
on the labeled results generated by the CNN model. In the second stage, observations and detections
during the field study were used to identify road potholes along the same routes. Supported by
the field study results, the proposed method successfully detected road potholes with an accuracy
ranging from 80% to 87%, depending on the specific route.