Monitoring of Carriageway Cross Section Profiles on Forest Roads: Assessment of an Ultrasound Data Based Road Scanner with TLS Data Reference

Forest roads are an important element in forest management as they provide infrastructure for different forest stakeholder groups. Over time, a variety of road assessment concepts for better planning were initiated. The monitoring of the surface cross-section profile of forest roads particularly offers the possibility to take early action in restoring a road segment and avoiding higher future costs. One vehicle-based monitoring system that relies on ultrasound sensors addresses this topic. With advantages in its dirt influence tolerance and high temporal resolution, but shortcomings in horizontal and vertical measuring accuracy, the system was tested against high resolution terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) data to find and assess working scenarios that fit the low- resolution measuring principle. In a related field test, we found low correct road geometry interpretation rates of 54.3% but rising to 91.2% under distinctive geometric properties. The further applied line- and segment-based method used to transform the TLS data to fit the road scanner measuring method allows the transfer of the road scanner evaluation principle to point-cloud or raster data of different origins.