Road Profile Inversion from In-Vehicle Accelerometers
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements
Volume 150, Issue 1
Abstract
This study was motivated by the need for a road profile monitoring concept that can provide frequent measurements over large areas across all weather conditions. A profile inversion method was proposed in this context, based on measured in-vehicle accelerations alongside speed and location information. The method combined a quarter-car response model, a proportional-integral-derivative controller, and a nonlinear error minimization algorithm. In general terms, the underlying idea for profile inversion was centred around best-matching measured accelerations with accelerations calculated in a precalibrated quarter-car response model. The new method was first verified with synthetic/manufactured acceleration traces. Next, it was applied to real data obtained from 10 nominally identical electric cars that were driven over highways and urban roads. Inverted road profiles were compared to those measured by a standard laser profilometer. Very good match and reproducibility metrics were obtained, especially for highways, indicating that the new method is potentially useful as a large-scale road profile monitoring concept.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
Raw data are freely available and can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.11583/DTU.c.6659909. All models and code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request, i.e., (1) processed data set, and (2) MATLAB code used for road profile inversion.
Acknowledgments
This work was carried out as part of the LiRA project, which received funding from Innovationsfonden award number 8090-00048B. The authors acknowledge the generous financial support and project guidance offered by Innovationsfonden.
Author contributions: The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: EL, AS; data collection: AS; analysis and interpretation of results: AS, EL; and draft manuscript preparation: AS, EL. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.
References
AASHTO. 2014a. Standard practice for accepting pavement ride quality when measured using inertial profiling systems. AASHTO R-054. Washington, DC: AASHTO.
AASHTO. 2014b. Standard practice for certification of inertial profiling systems. AASHTO R-056. Washington, DC: AASHTO.
AASHTO. 2014c. Standard practice for operating inertial profiling systems. AASHTO R-057. Washington, DC: AASHTO.
AASHTO. 2014d. Standard specification for inertial profiler. AASHTO M-328. Washington, DC: AASHTO.
Alessandroni, G., A. Carini, E. Lattanzi, V. Freschi, and A. Bogliolo. 2017. “A study on the influence of speed on road roughness sensing: The smartroadsense case.” Sensors 17 (2): 305. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17020305.
Burger, M., M. Speckert, R. Müller, and D. Weiberle. 2018. “Model-based identification of road profiles and road roughness indicators using vehicle measurements.” In Commercial vehicle technology 2018, 276–287. New York: Springer.
Chin, A., and M. J. Olsen. 2015. “Evaluation of technologies for road profile capture, analysis, and evaluation.” J. Surv. Eng. 141 (1): 04014011. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)SU.1943-5428.0000134.
Doumiati, M., J. Martinez, O. Sename, L. Dugard, and D. Lechner. 2017. “Road profile estimation using an adaptive youla-kučera parametric observer: Comparison to real profilers.” Control Eng. Pract. 61 (Apr): 270–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conengprac.2015.12.020.
Du, Y., C. Liu, D. Wu, and S. Jiang. 2014. “Measurement of international roughness index by using Z-axis accelerometers and GPS.” Math. Probl. Eng. 2014 (Jun): 928980. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/928980.
Du, Y., C. Liu, D. Wu, and S. Li. 2016. “Application of vehicle mounted accelerometers to measure pavement roughness.” Int. J. Distrib. Sens. Netw. 12 (6): 8413146. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/8413146.
Dyer, S. A., and J. S. Dyer. 2008. “Implementation problems in inertial road-profiling: An overview.” In Proc., Conf. Record—IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conf. 1520–1525. New York: IEEE.
González, A., E. J. O’Brien, Y.-Y. Li, and K. Cashell. 2008. “The use of vehicle acceleration measurements to estimate road roughness.” Veh. Syst. Dyn. 46 (6): 483–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/00423110701485050.
Harris, N. K., A. Gonzalez, E. J. O’Brien, and P. McGetrick. 2010. “Characterisation of pavement profile heights using accelerometer readings and a combinatorial optimisation technique.” J. Sound Vib. 329 (5): 497–508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2009.09.035.
Hu, F. 2015. “Road profile recovery using vertical acceleration data.” M.S. thesis, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Univ. of Windsor.
Imine, H., Y. Delanne, and N. M’sirdi. 2006. “Road profile input estimation in vehicle dynamics simulation.” Veh. Syst. Dyn. 44 (4): 285–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/00423110500333840.
Islam, S., W. G. Buttlar, R. G. Aldunate, and W. R. Vavrik. 2014. “Measurement of pavement roughness using android-based smartphone application.” Transp. Res. Rec. 2457 (1): 30–38. https://doi.org/10.3141/2457-04.
Janani, L., V. Sunitha, and S. Mathew. 2021. “Influence of surface distresses on smartphone-based pavement roughness evaluation.” Int. J. Pavement Eng. 22 (13): 1637–1650. https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2020.1714045.
Jazar, R. N. 2008. Vehicle dynamics: Theory and applications. New York: Springer.
Jordan, P., and D. Cooper. 1989. Road profile deterioration as an indicator of structural condition. London: Transport and Road Research Laboratory.
Keenahan, J., Y. Ren, and E. J. OBrien. 2020. “Determination of road profile using multiple passing vehicle measurements.” Struct. Infrastruct. Eng. 16 (9): 1262–1275. https://doi.org/10.1080/15732479.2019.1703757.
Kiencke, U., and L. Nielsen. 2000. “Automotive control systems: For engine, driveline, and vehicle.” Meas. Sci. Technol. 11 (12): 1828. https://doi.org/10.1088/0957-0233/11/12/708.
Levenberg, E., A. Skar, S. M. Pour, E. Kindler, M. Pettinari, M. Bajic, T. S. Alstrøm, and U. Schlotz. 2021. “Live road condition assessment with internal vehicle sensors.” Transp. Res. Rec. 2675 (10): 1442–1452. https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981211016852.
Liu, C., D. Wu, Y. Li, S. Jiang, and Y. Du. 2022. “Mathematical insights into the relationship between pavement roughness and vehicle vibration.” Int. J. Pavement Eng. 23 (6): 1935–1947. https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2020.1830092.
Loprencipe, G., and G. Cantisani. 2013. “Unified analysis of road pavement profiles for evaluation of surface characteristics.” Mod. Appl. Sci. 7 (8): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.5539/mas.v7n8p1.
Massaro, E., C. Ahn, C. Ratti, P. Santi, R. Stahlmann, A. Lamprecht, M. Roehder, and M. Huber. 2016. “The car as an ambient sensing platform.” Proc. IEEE 105 (1): 3–7. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2016.2634938.
Mirtabar, Z., A. Golroo, A. Mahmoudzadeh, and F. Barazandeh. 2022. “Development of a crowdsourcing-based system for computing the international roughness index.” Int. J. Pavement Eng. 23 (2): 489–498. https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2020.1755434.
Nelder, J. A., and R. Mead. 1965. “A simplex-method for function minimization.” Comput. J. 7 (4): 308–313. https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/7.4.308.
Ngwangwa, H. 2020. “Calculation of road profiles by reversing the solution of the vertical ride dynamics forward problem.” Cogent Eng. 7 (1): 1833819. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311916.2020.1833819.
Ngwangwa, H. M., P. S. Heyns, F. Labuschagne, and G. K. Kululanga. 2010. “Reconstruction of road defects and road roughness classification using vehicle responses with artificial neural networks simulation.” J. Terramech. 47 (2): 97–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jterra.2009.08.007.
Pepe, G., N. Roveri, and A. Carcaterra. 2019. “Experimenting sensors network for innovative optimal control of car suspensions.” Sensors 19 (14): 3062. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19143062.
Pettinari, M. 2020. “Lira (live road assessment) project.” Danish Road Directorate. Accessed March 15, 2021. http://lira-project.dk/.
Sandberg, U., and J. Ejsmont. 2002. Tyre/road noise: Reference book. New York: Informex.
Sayers, M. W. 1998. The little book of profiling: Basic information about measuring and interpreting road profiles. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan.
Seraj, F., N. Meratnia, and P. J. Havinga. 2017. “Rovi: Continuous transport infrastructure monitoring framework for preventive maintenance.” In Proc., 2017 IEEE Int. Conf. on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom), 217–226. New York: IEEE.
Sharp, R., and D. Crolla. 1987. “Road vehicle suspension system design–A review.” Veh. Syst. Dyn. 16 (3): 167–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/00423118708968877.
Skar, A., T. S. Alstrøm, T. Brüsch, A. M. Vestergaard, J. Larsen, and M. S. Pour. 2023a. Live road assessment custom dataset (LiRA-CD). Lyngby, Denmark: Technical Univ. of Denmark. https://doi.org/10.11583/DTU.c.6659909.
Skar, A., A. M. Vestergaard, T. Brüsch, S. Pour, E. Kindler, T. S. Alstrøm, U. Schlotz, J. E. Larsen, and M. Pettinari. 2023b. “LiRA-CD: An open-source dataset for road condition modelling and research.” Data Brief 49 (Aug): 109426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2023.109426.
Spangler, E. B., and W. J. Kelly. 1965. “Gmr road profilometer—A method for measuring road profile.” Highway Res. Rec. 121 (May): 27–54.
Xue, K., T. Nagayama, and B. Zhao. 2020. “Road profile estimation and half-car model identification through the automated processing of smartphone data.” Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 142 (Aug): 106722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2020.106722.
Zhang, Z., H. Zhang, S. Xu, and W. Lv. 2022. “Pavement roughness evaluation method based on the theoretical relationship between acceleration measured by smartphone and IRI.” Int. J. Pavement Eng. 23 (9): 3082–3098. https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2021.1881783.
Zhao, B., T. Nagayama, and K. Xue. 2019. “Road profile estimation, and its numerical and experimental validation, by smartphone measurement of the dynamic responses of an ordinary vehicle.” J. Sound Vib. 457 (Sep): 92–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2019.05.015.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements
Volume 150 • Issue 1 • March 2024
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 1, 2023
Accepted: Sep 27, 2023
Published online: Nov 29, 2023
Published in print: Mar 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Apr 29, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Algorithms
- Automobiles
- Business management
- Engineering fundamentals
- Errors (statistics)
- Highway and road conditions
- Highway and road management
- Highway transportation
- Highways and roads
- Infrastructure
- Mathematics
- Motivation
- Nonlinear analysis
- Personnel management
- Practice and Profession
- Statistics
- Structural analysis
- Structural engineering
- Transportation engineering
- Vehicles
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
Cited by
- Michael Speckert, Thorsten Dahlheimer, Jochen Fiedler, Michael Speckert, Thorsten Dahlheimer, Jochen Fiedler, Fitting Laplace Process Parameters for Non-equidistant Road Roughness Data, SAE Technical Paper Series, 10.4271/2024-01-2298, (2024).
- Asmus Skar, Anders Vestergaard, Shahrzad M. Pour, Matteo Pettinari, Internet-of-Things (IoT) Platform for Road Energy Efficiency Monitoring, Sensors, 10.3390/s23052756, 23, 5, (2756), (2023).