Techniques for averting and correcting errors in 3D terrain topology measurements

The emergence of high-fidelity vehicle and tyre models has raised the requirements for 3D terrain measurement capabilities. Inaccuracies that were once tolerable for measurement of general terrain roughness are no longer acceptable for these new applications. The data inaccuracies that arise from small inertial errors are compounded by difficulties in managing massive file sizes. These faults are most apparent when combining multiple lanes of data in the post-processing phase. This work develops two correction techniques: a general method for any terrain type and a more computationally efficient method for smooth terrain. The general terrain correction method uses overlapping points in the horizontal plane to build a discontinuity vector and applies that vector to correct adjacent lanes. While this method effectively eliminates lane-to-lane discontinuities, it is computationally inefficient for terrain that lacks localized disturbances. For simulations using smooth terrain surfaces, such as racetracks or highways, data can be down-sampled through a mean interpolation method to smooth the artefacts of inertial errors. This work provides the vehicle test engineer with guidelines to minimize inertial errors during the data collection phase as well as a post-processing tool to combine multiple lanes of high-fidelity 3D terrain surfaces.