Inertial Sensor Sample Rate Selection for Ride Quality Measures

Abstract

The Road Impact Factor is a measure of ride-quality. It is derived from the average inertial response of vehicles to road roughness. Unlike the International Roughness Index, the most common measure, the road impact factor does not rely on specialized instrumentation to measure spatial deviations from a flat profile. The most significant advantage of the Road Impact Factor is that low-cost sensors distributed in smartphones and connected vehicles generate the measurements directly. Standardizing the sample rate of inertial sensors in vehicles will provide consistent measures at any speed. This study characterizes the impact of sample rate and traversal volume on measurement consistency, and conducts case studies to validate the theories developed for a recommended standard at 64 hertz.