CLEVELAND — Cyvl, an infrastructure intelligence company, wants to put an end to potholes. The company uses artificial intelligence to inspect roads and detect potholes before they even form. The company says that it could save local governments money and save drivers a lot of pain.
Daniel Pelaez, Cyvl's CEO and co-creator, said the company's mission started when he was a summer intern with the street department in his hometown. He watched as the street department outsourced its inspections to other companies.
"As you can imagine," he said. "That costs a lot of money to have people walking the roads and inspecting everything."
Pelaez and his team spent the last few years developing technology that enables cities to conduct inspections themselves.
"What our technology essentially does is to help find those small issues before they become a massive issue," he said.
Described as a "magical box" by Pelaez, Cyvl's sensor plugs into the cigarette lighter of any vehicle. The sensor sits on top of the vehicle. It features a 360-degree camera to capture a comprehensive view of all inspected roads. A hockey puck-like device is the system's LiDAR, a laser scanning technology that collects data.
The data the sensor collects becomes immediately available for viewing on phones and other devices. The information is translated into a map that assigns local streets a score based on their current conditions. It also pinpoints cracks that could develop into potholes, allowing cities to make repairs before they do.
"It's less expensive to fix a small crack rather than a big hole in the ground," Peleaz said.
Cleveland Metroparks currently uses the system, and Cyvl hopes to expand to cities across the country.
"We want our technology to give that power back to the governments," Peleaz said. "Give them those resources in house and essentially multiply the resources they have."
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