Mr. Guralnick, a professor of civil engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, has invented a system that identifies potholes before they start. Ten years in the making, the Automated Road Inspection System, or ARIS, can detect minute imperfections in concrete or asphalt surfaces - levels of roughness virtually undetectable by the human eye. When a commercial model is ready, it could prove invaluable to cities, airports and companies with parking lots to maintain.
Potholes occur when tires roll over small imperfections in the pavement, like a small ridge.
That creates more ridges up and down the road like waves in a pond. Ultimately they corrode into potholes. The situation is exacerbated by snow and ice and the equipment used to remove it. With money from the National Science Foundation and the Federal Highway Administration, he began to experiment in the lab and determined that the moir idea could work in practice. A high-intensity light is projected through the hole, casting a shadow of the grating on the road.