Estimation of road profile for vehicle dynamics motion: Experimental validation

Knowledge of vehicle dynamic data is essential for the enhancement of active safety systems such as suspensions and trajectory control systems. Vehicle controllability analysis on real roads can be obtained only if valid road profile and tire road friction model are known. With regard to the road profile, this study focuses on a real-time estimation method based on Kalman filter. Besides, this paper presents a method for calculating loads on the wheels using road profile. The proposed method is based on the dynamic response of a vehicle instrumented with available sensors. The estimation process is applied and compared to real experimental data obtained with two inertial methods in real conditions. Experimental results show the accuracy and the potential of the proposed estimation process.