The use of vehicle acceleration measurements to estimate road roughness

TLDR

Road roughness encompasses potholes, cracks, and random profile deviations, and existing roughness indices rely on visual inspections or limited instrumented vehicles to measure these irregularities. The study proposes using vehicle‑mounted accelerometers to estimate road condition. The method employs accelerometer data from a specific vehicle type, exploiting the transfer‑function relationship between road surface and vehicle acceleration power spectral densities. The approach yields approximate but useful estimates, enabling manufacturers to improve suspension and providing road managers with inexpensive, continuously updated roughness data, while accurately classifying road profiles using axle and body accelerations across simulated scenarios.

Abstract

Road roughness is a broad term that incorporates everything from potholes and cracks to the random deviations that exist in a profile. To build a roughness index, road irregularities need to be measured first. Existing methods of gauging the roughness are based either on visual inspections or using one of a limited number of instrumented vehicles that can take physical measurements of the road irregularities. This paper proposes the collection of data from accelerometers fixed in a specific vehicle type and the use of this data to estimate the road condition. Although the estimate is approximate, accelerometers are being increasingly used by car manufacturers to improve suspension performance and the proposed method is relatively inexpensive to implement and provide road managers with constantly updated measurements of roughness. This approach is possible due to the relationship between the power spectral densities of road surface and vehicle accelerations via a transfer function. This paper shows how road profiles can be accurately classified using axle and body accelerations from a range of simulated vehicle–road dynamic scenarios.