Automation of pavement surface crack detection with a matched filtering to define the mother wavelet function used

This paper presents a new approach in automation for crack detection on pavement surface images. The method is based on the continuous wavelet transform. In the first step, a 2D continuous wavelet transform for several scales is per-formed. Complex coefficient maps are built. The angle and modulus information are used to keep significant coefficients. The mother wavelet function is defined using a matched filtering, thus the method is self-adapted to the road texture. No user intervention is needed. Then, wavelet coefficients maximal values are searched and their propagation through scales is analyzed. Finally, a post-processing gives a binary image which indicates the presence or not of cracks on the pavement surface image.