Development of a control system for a multipurpose road repairing machine

In this paper an automatic control system for a multipurpose road pavement repairing machine (ROADMOTO) is introduced. The goal is to achieve cost savings and better work quality by means of automation. Before the actual repair work a GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), a profilometer or laser scanning techniques are used for collecting information about the road. During the design phase a repair design file is created. The ROADMOTO machine is equipped with a GPS positioning unit and the repair design file can be used for automatic control of road repairing operations. The control system also offers a manual control mode as well as automatic height and slope control modes. This ensures flexibility, because the user can choose the control mode that best suits the situation. The process from data collection and design to automatic machine control is presented as well as the developed prototype system and results of the first tests. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.