Rough terrain profiling using digital image correlation

Abstract

Road profiling is an important aspect of vehicle dynamics simulations especially over rough terrains. The accurate measurement of rough terrains allows for more accurate multi body simulations. Three dimensional road profiles are usually performed by utilising a line scan sensor which measures several points lateral to the road. The sensors range from simple road following wheels to LiDAR sensors. The obtained line scans are longitudinally stitched together using the orientation and position of the sensor to obtain a full three dimensional road profile. The sensor's position and orientation therefore needs to be accurately determined in order to combine the line scans to create an accurate representation of the terrain. The sensor's position and orientation is normally measured using an expensive inertial measurement unit or Inertial Navigation System (INS) with high sensitivity, low noise and low drift. This paper proposes a road profiling technique which utilises stereography, based on two inexpensive digital cameras, to obtain three-dimensional measurements of the road. The system negates the use of an expensive INS system to determine orientation and position. The data sets also require 2 subsampling which can be computationally expensive. A simple subsampling routine is presented which takes advantage of the structure of the data sets to significantly speed up the process.

Variability of Gravel Pavement Roughness: An Analysis of the Impact on Vehicle Dynamic Response and Driving Comfort

“…A ride quality assessment of vehicle response is convenient enough, although the most characteristic driving speed is not the same for different quality pavements. Various identification principles are also known from studies in the literature, for example, a mechanical profilometer for three-dimensional terrain models [49], smartphone accelerometer processing [50], digital image analysis [51], and reconstruction methods using additional sensors [52,53].…”

Variability of Gravel Pavement Roughness: Analysis of the Impact on Vehicle Response and Driving Comfort

“…Ride quality assessment of vehicle response is convenient enough, though the most characteristic driving speed is not the same for different quality pavements. Other various identification principles are also known from the literature, for example, a mechanical profilometer for three-dimensional terrain models [49], smartphone accelerometer processing [50], or image analysis [51], reconstruction methods using additional sensors [52,53].…”

Vehicle suspension force and road profile prediction on undulating roads

“…A detailed description of the measurement techniques employed to determine the road profile is discussed by Becker and Els [9]. These methods include the use of singlewheel trailers [8], inertial profilometers [10], laser scanners [9] and high resolution cameras [11] that give geometrically accurate 3D models of the terrain. The limitation of these techniques is that they are time consuming and require significant amounts of post-processing, thus limiting their application to online control strategies.…”