Characterisation of pavement profile heights using accelerometer readings and a combinatorial optimisation technique

Abstract

Pavement surface profiles induce dynamic ride responses in vehicles which can potentially be used to classify road surface roughness. A novel method is proposed for the characterisation of pavement roughness through an analysis of vehicle accelerations.A combinatorial optimisation technique is applied to the determination of pavement profile heights based on measured accelerations at and above the vehicle axle. Such an approach, using low-cost inertial sensors, would provide an inexpensive alternative to the costly laser based profile measurement vehicles. The concept is numerically validated using a half-car roll dynamic model to infer measurements of road profiles in both the left and right wheel paths.

Modelling the vehicle in vehicle—infrastructure dynamic interaction studies

“…Finally, these vehicle equations can be combined with the equations of the infrastructure model under investigation to analyse vehicle-infrastructure problems, i.e., impact factor due to traffic in roads and bridges [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]32], dynamics in railway bridges [2,3], pavement deterioration due to the passage of heavy vehicles [33][34], performance of vehicle elements such as suspensions or tyres [1,[36][37][38][39], evaluation of ride quality and pavement unevenness [40][41][42], or weigh-in-motion applications [43][44][45] amongst others. In the case of simulating the interaction between a vehicle and a bridge, Lagrange multipliers [17], dynamic condensation [3] or iterative procedures [31] are some of the most popular approaches to combine the equations of motion of both models.…”

A drive-by inspection system via vehicle moving force identification

“…In reality, the calibration of the vehicle model would be required before implementing the algorithm in order to obtain these properties. This involves the determination of the model properties based on measurements of the vehicle response to an excitation source, i.e., a known road profile or a bump using combinatorial optimisation (Harris et al 2010), or a vibration test using modal analysis (Friswell and Mottershead 1995). In order to maintain a reasonable level of accuracy, the same calibrated vehicle would be used every time for implementation of the algorithm.…”

Evaluation of Vehicular Discomfort Measures Produced by Speed Bumps Using Numerical Simulation

“…The root mean square (RMS), as shown in Eq. (1), generally is the method used to quantify the vibration severity levels that a man is exposed to in the absence of impacts [4,5].…”