Road Profile Estimation From Vehicle State With Multibody Dynamic Analysis

Road conditions such as unevenness are significant factors to the ride comfort of a vehicle. In this study, we developed the estimation method of the road profile using a multibody vehicle model. In a vehicle analysis, a road profile is typically given as an input and vehicle states are obtained as outputs. In our method, a road profile is estimated by solving an inverse problem of the vehicle model using measured vehicle state. This estimation is performed only with simple sensors that can be mounted on a general car. The estimated road profile is compared with the results of the actual road to evaluate the validity of our estimation.Copyright © 2012 by ASME