The Research of Road Profile Estimation Based on Acceleration Measurement

To get the certain response of vehicle during the driving process, it’s necessary to measure the road irregularities. Existing method of gauging the roughness is based on physical measurements and the instrument is installed under the vehicle, which is expensive and will affect the vehicle dynamic responses. This paper shows an easier method to estimate the road roughness by measuring and calculating the power spectral density (PSD) of unsprung mass accelerations. This approach is possible due to the relationship between these two via a transfer function. By comparing the power spectral densities of estimated road and the standard classes, we can classify the current road classes easily. Besides, this paper also shows that it’s feasible to estimate the road profile by calculating the PSD of unsprung mass accelerations directly.