So Google has filed a patent for a system that automatically monitors and reports on road quality, allowing the company to create a database of the smoothest roads in a city for improved navigation.
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The information would aid other drivers and infrastructure development authorities to locate potholes, ultimately aiding drivers in avoiding the damage from the driving over a pothole.
Now, Google tries to discover the damaged part of the road with the help of the GPS navigation system and sensors. I’m actually a Detroiter who just happens to live in Houston, though, and I can tell you Houston has nothing on Detroit when it comes to potholes. It’s also data that would undoubtedly come in handy for Google’s self-driving vehicle project. The average successful claim earned a payout of £286. The technology would see vehicles logging the location of major bumps in the road and uploading the information to the cloud.
The luxury auto firm’s Range Rover Evoque research vehicle can identify the location and severity of potholes and broken manhole covers and adjust suspension in a fraction of a second to mitigate the worst effects.
If you grew up in Lebanon like I did, you’d consider potholes an unavoidable fact of hitting the road. Heat and general wear and tear also causes them to form. They make for an unpleasant drive and serve only to put money in your mechanic’s pocket.
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Google Maps already offers similar warnings for things like accidents, construction, road closures, and more via user submissions in the Waze mapping app it acquired along with a few other sources. The sensor detects the vertical vibration and adds the intensity of the pothole.
