Evaluation of Opportunities for Connected Aircraft Data to Identify Pavement Roughness at Airports

Abstract

This paper reviews the construction and maintenance guidelines for airfield pavements, as well as the current methods for assessing pavement conditions. A study is performed on an airport’s taxiway to determine if acceleration data from airframe mounted accelerometers and on-board avionic systems can be used to provide an estimate of pavement roughness. A comparison of international roughness index (IRI), 3-axis accelerometer data, and normal acceleration data from the G1000 unit is presented based on a field study performed at the Purdue University Airport (KLAF). The paper concludes that there is a potential for crowdsourced data obtained from an aircraft’s on-board system such as the G1000 to act as an additional tool for airport managers to monitor surface conditions between routine and detailed inspections.