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US Military Airfield Pavement PCI Surveys by Drone
A PCI for every sample unit of a US military airfield, from drone imagery and the D5340 definitions. Early access, in development, with the limits…
OCT 18 2026
13 MIN
PAVEMENT · ASTM D5340 · PCI
In development
A PCI for every square metre of the airfield
One drone flight, and the software finds, measures and rates every crack by the D5340 definitions, then computes the Pavement Condition Index of every sample unit. Not a sample, every unit, rated the same way whoever runs the survey. Running today on our own flights, offered as early access.
≤1 pt
PCI off the UFM 3-260-16 worked examples, asphalt and concrete
>90 %
of the agreement between two human annotators, on held-out tiles
~20 min
from image capture to PCI report, 1 km of runway at 5 mm per pixel
33
D5340 distress types the classifier recognises
The survey, in the application
Three screens from TarmacView Pavement Center, on our own flights at Žilina and Trenčín.
Every sample unit coloured by its PCI
The section opens on a map. Each sample unit is filled by its PCI on one 0 to 100 scale, and every crack is drawn where it lies, coloured by distress type, with line width for severity. Open a unit and you see its distresses, their quantities and the deduct calculation behind its number. Here, sample unit 007 on Žilina's runway: 177 m of longitudinal and transverse cracking at medium severity, a max corrected deduct of 42.6 and a PCI of 57.4.
Review that trains the model
The review queue shows each detection next to the cracks that look like it, found by comparing their image vectors. The analyst marks a 31 mm dark band as a sealed crack, and the 24 similar detections take the same verdict in one save. The PCI of every affected unit updates before the next crack loads. The report never waits for review. Review is how the model learns each airfield's sealant, paint and joints, because every verdict becomes a training label.
The D5340 condition sheet, per unit
Every run writes a report: a summary and coverage page, the sample-unit PCI map, the section condition table, one sheet per unit with the deduct values and the corrected deduct iteration, distress photos by type and severity, the review log, and the method and its assumptions. It lists the types rated and the types not rated, in metres, ready as PDF and as CSV tables.
FIT
Who this is for
The person who has to say what condition the pavement is in and which sections get money. Three buyers have their own pages: government and state airports , NATO and allied airfields and US military airfields .
For
Airfield pavement engineers who run a PCI programme and want every sample unit rated, not a sample.
Public owners of several airports who need condition data that compares across every site they fund.
Military and allied airfield engineers who want a PCI without closing the runway for a walked survey.
Asset managers who keep a pavement management system and want a survey that arrives in the same form every year.
Not for
A survey that a requirement says must be signed by a certified PCI inspector, until our side-by-side with one is published.
Structural capacity questions, which need deflection testing, coring or a penetrometer rather than imagery.
Friction, roughness and texture measurement, which need equipment on the surface.
HOW IT WORKS · 7 STEPS
From flight to PCI report
01
Fly
An RTK drone flies 6 to 18 m above the pavement on a mission planned from the surface geometry and the camera, so the pixel size is computed, not assumed. Finer pixels show finer cracks and take longer, so the survey is fitted to the narrowest crack it must catch and to the traffic window on the day.
02
Map
The images become an orthomosaic at 1 to 5 mm per pixel. An orthomosaic built from the drone's own positions is 6 times faster than photogrammetry on the same photos, with the PCI within 1 point.
03
Detect
The crack model marks crack pixels over the whole orthomosaic. A classifier labels each tile with the other D5340 distress types.
04
Measure
Geometry code measures each crack's centreline length in metres, its width in millimetres and the cells it encloses. On concrete it fits the slab grid, so every crack is counted against the right slab.
05
Rate
A rule engine assigns the D5340 type and severity from one catalogue transcribed from UFM 3-260-16, then computes the deducts, the corrected deduct value and the PCI of every sample unit and of the section.
06
Report
A GeoJSON inventory, the PCI per sample unit, condition sheets with the deduct calculation, CSV tables, and a list of the types rated and not rated.
07
Review
An analyst confirms or corrects detections in batches of similar cracks. The PCI updates with each save, and every verdict becomes a training label.
RESULTS TODAY
Measured on our own runways
Every figure comes from our own flights and hand-checked tiles, not from public benchmarks.
7 parameters
ASTM D5340 · UFM 3-260-16
Measured
How
Result
01
PCI on the UFM worked examples
Our PCI arithmetic run on the asphalt and concrete worked examples of UFM 3-260-16.
Result
within 1 point
02
Section PCI, surveyed again
The same runway section flown and processed twice.
Result
within 1 point
03
Crack model against two annotators
Held-out tiles, hand-checked by two people, model scored against their agreement.
Result
more than 90 % of their agreement
04
Crack-free concrete, no false detection
60 crack-free concrete tiles, our two crack models combined.
Result
57 of 60
05
Orthomosaic from drone positions
Against photogrammetry on the same photos.
Result
6× faster, PCI within 1 point
06
D5340 types the classifier recognises
17 asphalt and 16 concrete distress types.
Result
all 33
07
Images to PCI report, 100 m
On a MacBook, at 1 mm and at 5 mm per pixel.
Result
30 min / 2 min
A certified PCI inspector's rating of the same sections is the next comparison. Every new airfield adds hand-checked tiles to the training data.
WHY EVERY UNIT
A walked survey rates a sample. A flight rates the airfield.
ASTM D5340 is a visual method. Inspectors walk the sample units the sampling rules pick, judge each distress by eye and add up the deducts by hand. It works, and it has three costs: the result depends on who walks, the units nobody walked are inferred, and the runway is closed while people are on it.
A drone flight changes all three. The camera images every square metre at the same pixel size, the software applies one catalogue to every crack, and the runway is open again as soon as the aircraft lands. The PCI that comes out uses the same definitions and the same deduct values, computed for every unit instead of a sample.
Because every distress keeps its position, its length and its width in millimetres, a second survey is not just a second number. It shows which cracks grew and by how much, which is what moves maintenance from repair after failure to planned repair.
The method is the one civil and military airfields already share. The PCI was developed for the US Army Corps of Engineers, is used by the FAA, is set out for NATO in STANAG 7181 / AEP-56, and its distress catalogue is the one in UFM 3-260-16. The same flight also does more than pavement. PAPI and navigation aid inspection run on the same platform today.
WHERE IT IS GOING
The same flight, doing more
What runs today is above. These are the directions the next work goes in, in no promised order.
01
Every type, rated with its severity
Every D5340 distress type rated automatically, not only the cracking types, with foreign object debris flagged in the same pass.
02
Crack growth, forecast
Repeat surveys of the same sections, with a growth forecast per crack that each next survey checks.
03
Into PAVER and your GIS
Results loading straight into PAVER and into the owner's geographic information system.
04
Depth and damage
Crack depth from angled photos, and craters and spalls measured in depth and volume, so a damaged airfield knows within tens of minutes which runway takes which aircraft.
05
Docks and dispatch
Drone docks at the airfield that launch on command from the base or from a central dispatch.
06
Your own secure cloud
Processing on the owner's own cloud under its security controls, for networks of airfields.
THE HONEST LIMITS
What it does not do
Three limits worth knowing before a first flight, and who each one belongs to.
Owner · WEATHER
Daylight and a dry surface
We fly in daylight, preferably on a dry surface. Wind, temperature and rain limits are the aircraft maker's. Snow, sand, standing water or heavy contamination hide the pavement, and the mission is reflown rather than rated through them. Sealant and paint edges can read as cracks, and the analyst clears them in minutes.
Owner · PHYSICS
Nothing below the surface
Imagery rates what is visible. Structural capacity needs deflection testing, coring or a penetrometer, and friction and roughness need equipment on the surface. A PCI says nothing about a pavement's ACR-PCR strength rating.
Owner · THE REQUIREMENT
Where a signed survey is named
Where a funding programme or an instruction names a survey signed by a certified PCI inspector, that survey is still what satisfies it, until a certified inspector has rated our sections side by side. We want that comparison and will publish it.
TarmacView is accountable for the flight, the processing and the report. The airfield operator owns access, the section map sign-off and what is done with the results. Nothing on this page is a compliance statement for a particular authority.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do you report a Pavement Condition Index?
- Yes. The software computes the PCI of every sample unit and of the section, following the ASTM D5340 definitions and the deduct values of the UFM 3-260-16 catalogue. It reproduces the UFM worked examples within 1 point on asphalt and concrete. The report lists which distress types were rated and which were not, because an unrated type biases the PCI upward. A certified PCI inspector has not yet rated our sections side by side, and that comparison is the next one we publish.
- How long is the runway closed?
- Only for the flight. One aircraft covers 1 km of a 45 m wide runway in about 4 minutes for cracks from 10 mm, 13 minutes for cracks from 5 mm, and 45 minutes for the full 1 mm per pixel survey with cracks from 2 mm. More aircraft cut these times. The aircraft launches from the shoulder, nothing touches the pavement, and the runway reopens as soon as it lands.
- Which distress types are rated?
- Rated automatically today, with severity from the measured width: alligator, block, and longitudinal and transverse cracking on asphalt, and linear cracking with joint and corner spalling on concrete. A classifier labels each tile with the other D5340 types and already recognises all 33. Every type the run did not rate is listed as not rated in the report, so nobody reads a PCI as more complete than it is.
- What does the analyst do, and does the report wait for it?
- The report does not wait. The pipeline writes it on its own about 20 minutes after landing for 1 km at 5 mm per pixel. Review exists to make the model better. The queue shows each detection next to the cracks that look like it, and the analyst marks a sealed crack, a joint, vegetation, paint or a stain in one save and sees the PCI change. Every verdict becomes a training label for that airfield.
- Which drones does it work with?
- The mission planner writes the survey in almost every mission format in commercial use, among them DJI, MAVLink for PX4 and ArduPilot, and UgCS. We fly several DJI aircraft, and partner operators fly other fleets. You can have us fly the airfield, or fly it with your own aircraft.
- Can it run without a network, on our own hardware?
- Yes. The full pipeline, from drone images to the PCI report, runs on a laptop or on a PC with a graphics card, on site. On a MacBook it takes about 30 minutes per 100 m of runway at 1 mm per pixel and about 2 minutes at 5 mm. No cloud service sits in the processing path, and the outputs are open formats: GeoJSON, PDF and CSV.
- Can this feed our pavement management system?
- The inventory is GeoJSON keyed to section and sample-unit IDs, the PCI per unit comes as GeoJSON and CSV, and the condition sheets are PDF, so a GIS opens all of it. A direct import into PAVER is not built yet. It is on the roadmap, and in the meantime the CSV tables carry the per-unit values a programme needs.
References
- astm-d5340
- ASTM D5340-24, Standard Test Method for Airport Pavement Condition Index Surveys ASTM International
- ufm-3-260-16
- UFM 3-260-16, Condition Surveys of Operating Surfaces US Department of Defense, Unified Facilities Criteria
- nato-aep-56
- STANAG 7181 / AEP-56, NATO Standard Method for Airfield Pavement Condition Index (PCI) Surveys NATO Standardization Office
- faa-ac-150-5380-6
- AC 150/5380-6, Guidelines and Procedures for Maintenance of Airport Pavements Federal Aviation Administration
- icao-annex-14-v1
- Annex 14 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Volume I: Aerodrome Design and Operations International Civil Aviation Organization
Reviewed by Štefan Moravík · 2026-10-18
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Fly your runway with us
The pavement survey is in development and offered as early access. Tell us the airfield, the surfaces and the narrowest crack you need to see, and we will plan the flight with you. Nothing is binding.