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In pursuit of the perfect pothole patcher

Posted February 08, 2008 10:00 pm

Bruce Rushton

Forget mousetraps.

If you want the world to beat a path to your door, figure out a better way to fix potholes.

That's the thinking behind a pair of inventions that once captured the collective imagination of the road-repair world. Both are now languishing, forgotten except in the minds of men who dared to dream - with a little help from taxpayers.

Eight feet wide, 32 feet long and built with more than $1 million in federal money, an "automated pavement repair vehicle" (in the jargon of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) was supposed to stop over potholes and fix them in a matter of minutes with equipment that dropped down through doors in the vehicle's floor.

Researchers at Northwestern University got far enough along to build a prototype that starred at a Las Vegas convention featuring construction equipment, recalled Ronald Ralston, one of the inventors. Brochures touting "The Patcher" were printed up.

"It looked beautiful - the truck was absolutely gorgeous," said Ralston, who lives in Elmhurst. "I think we paid $22,000 to have all the lettering painted on."

There was just one glitch: It didn't work.

Computer-guided sensors that were supposed to precisely locate potholes and guide automated paving nozzles over them were never perfected. The research team built a joystick that would allow a rider to work the paving nozzles while a driver paid attention to the road. The team patched several potholes in Evanston to demonstrate the invention's promise, but it still fizzled.

"That machine was so close to working, it was unbelievable," Ralston said. "I'm sure $100,000 would put that machine in total working order."

Northwestern University patented the contraption, but it soon became an embarrassment, said Ralston and co-worker Herb Underwood.

"It never went into production mainly because, I'm ashamed to say, Northwestern University was embarrassed that we were working on such a mundane thing as pothole-repair vehicle," Underwood said. "They said, 'We want to do things like special hardening of metals.'"

The Patcher last surfaced in Seattle, Ralston said. He's not sure how, but someone bought it and tracked him down.

"He didn't even know what he had," Ralston said.

Two thousand miles from Illinois, Leo Mara invented a fancier version of The Patcher, the size of a bus, that wouldn't have to stop to make repairs. Dubbed the Rapid Road Repair Vehicle, it was to fix roads beneath it while moving between 10 and 35 mph.

"Cracks would be 35, potholes would be 10," said Mara, a computer expert who works for Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., which works on nuclear weapons systems.

"I had this idea one day," Mara explained. "I went to my boss and said, 'What do you think about this?'"

Within a few months, Mara had built a bench-top prototype that patched holes in miniature Styrofoam roads.

Sandia issued a press release trumpeting the breakthrough, and The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle published stories. Sandia figured the U.S. market could be worth as much as $500 million. But 10 years later, the only holes patched have been in Styrofoam.

"California is not a real good place to sell this thing because we're not plagued with potholes," Mara said.

But he hasn't given up hope. Nearing retirement, he says he recently acquired the patent from Sandia.

"I intend to get this thing running in my retirement," Mara said. "I still think it's an absolutely excellent idea. It will save money. It will save lives.

"It really is a good thing."

Bruce Rushton can be reached at (217) 788-1542.

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