Abstract
Miniature accelerometer sensors were used for the evaluation of road surface roughness. The device designed for installation in the vehicles is composed of a GPS receiver and of multi-axis accelerometers. Smartphones with built-in accelerometers were also used. Measurement data were collected through the recording of road trips employing 3 car types on diversified surface roughness roads and with varied vehicle speed on each investigated road section. The first step of data processing was the sensor alignment made to achieve proper values of acceleration vector. Subsequently, the influence of the car suspension system to the measurement results was diminished employing a designed filter. The magnitude of coefficients of Gabor transform analysis of accelerometer signals was calculated to discover differences between good and damaged surface. Research results show that road sections quality can be assessed by the applied vibration analysis. Although the precision of low-cost devices may be lower than the application of expensive professional laser profilograph scanning on road pavements, they can help to increase the effectiveness and the coverage of road surface damage detection, through the monitoring of road surfaces with typical cars instead of special test vehicles only. [Research was subsidized by the Polish National Centre for Research and Development and the General Directorate of Public Roads and Motorways within the Grant No. OT4- 4B/AGH-PG-WSTKT.]
Published Version
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