Plausibility Checking of Road Profile Measurements 2003-01-0669

Load data representing severe customer usage is required during the chassis development process. The use of road profiles and vehicle models to predict chassis loads is currently being researched; this research hinges on the ability to accurately measure road profiles. This work focuses on detecting possible signal defects such as leaves on the ground, reflecting surfaces, or narrow roadway gaps. The objective of this work is to develop a simulation procedure that checks the measured road profile for plausibility. The position of the vehicle body is recorded as part of the typical road profiling process. Ideally, a mathematical model can predict the body position from a road profile. The first step in verifying the plausibility of road profiles is to predict the body position. Next, the measured body position is compared to the predicted body position for the road profile in question. New criteria for plausibility checking are a major contribution of this work. These criteria include examination of the amplitude, duration, and phase relationships of the measured/simulated body position and velocity. Plausibility bounds are placed on a new representation of these relationships as well as on bandwidth-specific areas of the vehicle transfer function. These plausibility bounds are another major contribution of this work. A set of characteristic signal defects are defined and added to existing road profiles to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method. This is the seminal work for plausibility checking of measured road profiles.