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ESTIMATION AND EVALUATION OF ROAD ROUGHNESS VIA DIFFERENT

TOOLS AND METHODS

Conference Paper · July 2019

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Abduvokhid Yunusov Sulaymon Eshkabilov

Kimyo International University in Tashkent North Dakota State University
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TRANSPORT PROBLEMS 2019
XI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Keywords: accelerometers; acceleration; laser profile-meter;

response type measurement; road roughness; profile; integration; IRI

Abduvokhid YUNUSOV*, Sulaymon ESHKABILOV, Davron RISKALIEV

Tashkent Institute of Design, Construction and Maintenance of Automotive Roads
20, A. Temur, 100060, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Nurmukhammad ABDUKARIMOV
Tashkent Turin Polytechnic University
Kichik Halqa Yuli 17, 100095 Tashkent, Uzbekistan
*Corresponding author. E-mail: abduvokhid.yunusov@gmail.com

ESTIMATION AND EVALUATION OF ROAD ROUGHNESS VIA

DIFFERENT TOOLS AND METHODS
Summary. This work presents a comparative analysis of a few different methods and
tools for road roughness assessment and evaluation, and highlights some practical aspects
of using these methods and tools including experimental data analyses using MATLAB®.
In assessment of road profile roughness, geometrical measurement and response type
approaches with class 1, 2 and 3 tools are employed. The following tools are employed in
measuring road’s micro-profile: geometrical measurements with static measuring devices
- Total Station 06 Leica Geo SystemTM and 3 meter straightedge, mobile measuring
devices - Laser profilometer from DYNATESTTM, accelerometers of DytranTMinstalled in
the car body and axle, accelerometers of smart phone – Samsung Galaxy S5, V-BOXTM,
in-house designed and developed data acquisition system and analog-to-digital converter
with ArduinoTMUno Board and accelerometer GY-61, Roughometer III developed by
ARRB group Ltd. All of the measured and computed road profile data are compared with
the ones obtained from. Road tests are run in different vehicle velocities, viz. 20, 30, 40,
50, 60, 70 and 80 km/h. Comparative studies have demonstrated that the response type of
measurements with accelerometers are of sufficiently high quality in assessing road
profile and evaluating international road-roughness index (IRI) and can be comparable in
accuracy with the class 1 geometrical static profilers and class 2 mobile profilometers like
laser profiler from DYNATESTTM.

ВЫЧИСЛЕНИЕ И ОЦЕНКА НЕРОВНОСТИ ДОРОЖНОГО ПОКРЫТИЯ С

ПОМОЩЬЮ РАЗЛИЧНЫХ ИНСТРУМЕНТОВ И МЕТОДОВ
Аннотация. В данной работе представлен сравнительный анализ нескольких
различных методов и инструментов для вычисления и оценки неровности дороги, а
также освещены некоторые практические аспекты использования этих методов и
инструментов, включая анализ экспериментальных данных с использованием
MATLAB®. При оценке микропрофиля дороги используются геометрические
измерения и подходы типа отклика с использованием инструментов классов 1, 2 и
3. При измерении микропрофиля дороги используются следующие инструменты:
геометрические измерения с помощью статических измерительных приборов -
тахеометр 06 Leica Geo SystemTM и 3-метровая рейка, мобильные измерительные
приборы - лазерный профилометр от DYNATESTTM, акселерометры DytranTM,
установленные в кузове и на оси автомобиля, акселерометры смартфона - Samsung
Estimation and evaluation of road roughness via different tools and methods 771.

Galaxy S5, V-BOXTM, собственной проектированной и разработанной системы

сбора данных и аналого-цифрового преобразователя с платой ArduinoTMUno и
акселерометром GY-61, Roughometer III, разработанных ARRB group Ltd. Все
измеренные и расчетные данные профиля дороги сравниваются с данными,
полученными из. Дорожные испытания проводено в разных скоростях
транспортного средства, а именно. 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 и 80 км / ч. Сравнительные
исследования показали, что результаты измерений с использованием
акселерометров достаточно высокого качества при оценке профиля дороги и
оценке международного индекса ровности (IRI) и могут быть сопоставимы по
точности с геометрическими статическими профилометрами класса 1 и
мобильными профилометрами класса 2, такими как лазерный профилометрами от
DYNATESTTM.

1. INTRODUCTION

The quality of the road profile defines comfort ride and quality of load and passenger
transportation. Therefore, by improving road pavement quality, quality of goods and passenger
transportation will be improved and subsequently, considerable amount energy will be saved with less
damaging impact on the environment as well. Moreover, the road profile makes a direct impact on the
durability and longevity of vehicle’s operational quality. Hence, it is salient to ensure sufficient quality
of road profiles. For this purpose, it is imperative to assess quality of road construction and
maintenance of roads. High quality assessment of profile roughness defines accurately road assets and
necessary resources for renovation and maintenance. Hence, it is also directly linked with economy
and resource planning in roads. There are a few different methods, tools and approaches in assessing
and evaluation of road profile quality that differ in prices, accuracy, user friendliness, etc. According
to the classifications [1] of road roughness measurement tools, there are four classes of tools which are
class 1 and 2 - geometric measurement, class 3 - non-geometric or response type of measurement and
class 4 – subjective. Class 1 and 2 tools, which are rod and level, dipstick, walking profilometer,
profilographs, different profilometers (straightedge, low-speed CHLOE, non-contact inertial, contact
inertial, etc.), have the highest accuracy but in general labor intensive and low time efficient.
Conversely, class 3 tools, which are roughometer, Mays meter, accelerometers are fast and less labor
intensive with relatively lower costs than some of class 1 or 2 tools. Amongst these tools, devices
measuring dynamic effects of the road on a car (suspension-axle-un-sprung mass and/or car body-
sprung mass) with accelerometers, velocity/displacement gauges, high speed laser/infrared/ultrasonic
sensing devices to measure vertical irregularities of road surface are very efficient and promising.
With these tools, a compound analysis of road irregularities along with their excitation impact on the
car body, i.e. passengers and goods can be made. The road pavement quality measurement and
assessment require two essential aspects, viz. selection of hardware (tools) and measured data (signal)
processing that all should give in sufficiently high accuracy and less efforts, time and energy. Many
studies have been performed and still going on to devise efficient measurement tools and data analysis
methods. To simplify and unify the road roughness assessment indicators, a number of international
and national standards and methods widely accepted and used by road engineers and specialists in
many nations worldwide. They are IRI (International Roughness Index) [2], ISO 2631 [3], ISO 8608
[4], Japanese Method [5] and others. The IRI [2] calculation is based quarter car model responses on
road profile excitation. It is most widely used around the world due to its simplicity and easiness for
use and analysis; however, it has some considerable drawbacks, as well. ISO 2631 [3] is not designed
for road pavement quality assessment but rather for whole body vibration inside a car body that can be
also employed for evaluation of the road interaction with a car body and impact of the road roughness
on passengers and a driver. ISO 8608 [4] is latest advances for an analysis of road profile via power
spectral density of road irregularities that gives the whole picture of road profile in frequency domain.
This is much more complex procedure with high costs for analyses but with high quality of data. The
772 A. Yunusov, S. Eshkabilov, D. Riskaliev, N. Abdukarimov

Japanese method [5] is used to determine the road disturbances and roughness estimates from
horizontal line based on the measurements done in every 1.5 meter.
The research motivation of this paper was to perform comparative analyses of eight different road
profile measurement and pavement quality assessment tools and methods. They are: (1) 3-meter
straightedge, (2) geometrical profiler (Total Station 06 LeicaTM), (3) high precision laser profiler –
DYNATESTTM, (4) accelerometers – DytranTM, (5) accelerometer GY-61 with in-house developed
data acquisition system with ArduinoTMUNO board, (6) smart phone with an application platform
Roadroid, (7) Roughometer III developed by ARRB group Ltd and (8) V-BOXTM. We have aimed to
demonstrate and make recommendations on accuracy and how to improve accuracy of the response
type measurement approach with tools, viz. accelerometers by employing appropriate digital filters
and numerical integration method in order to obtain vertical displacement (road profile) from the
measured vertical acceleration data. Another idea was pursued in the study that is a possibility of
designing simple and inexpensive data acquisition system with ArduinoTM UNO board and
accelerometer sensor GY-61 to record vertical acceleration of a car body. The collected vertical
acceleration will be processed in order to obtain vertical displacement of a car body that will be treated
as a road profile.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Here are some generalized reviews and comparative analyses of some class 1, 2 and 3 tools.
Straightedges are one of the early used tools of road roughness after completion of road construction.
The 3 or 4-meter straightedge [6, 7] is widely used to measured relative difference in height in every
1.5 meter along the driving direction on the road pavement (asphalt and concrete) surfaces after
completion of road construction or renovation to assess acceptance level of the road construction
quality. It is easy to use and almost no training required but has a tremendous drawback in assessing
the road profiles with longer wave lengths (6 meters or longer) that cannot be detected at all.
Moreover, it has very low work efficiency and requires a considerable large human labor force to
assess long distances. However, they are widely in-used in many developing and developed countries,
viz. CIS countries, Taiwan, Russian Federation, Italy, Australia, Japan and so forth due to the fact that
its measured data are interpreted rather easily. Another measuring method is geometrical measurement
with optical or laser optical static profilers according to the International Standards [8], for example
using Total Station 06 Leica Geo SystemTM. The geometrical measurement tools are very accurate, but
requires extremely large human labor and time. There is another group of mobile profilometer tools
which are more efficient with high accuracy and less human labor intensive. Laser profilers [9], e.g.
DYNATESTTM that is very efficient, accurate and comparable with the geometrical static profilers like
Total Station Leica Geo SystemTM. One of the major drawbacks of the tools like laser profilometers
are their high costs and therefore, it may not accessible or cost efficient to employ for road profile
assessment of different categories of roads. In our studies, we have also employed this tool and
compared its performances with other tools. Therefore, researchers and engineers are in search of
faster and more efficient tools and methods to assess road profile roughness with certain accuracy and
if possible, with less tool and human labor costs. Alternative devices for class 1 and 2 tools are
response type measurement tools of class 3 based on the recording vehicle suspension and body
responses on the excitations coming from the terrain profile. One of them is a bump integrator or also
called rouhgometer [10] that records the road profile with respect to the relative displacement or stroke
of the vehicle damper’s rod, and computes routinely calculated summary of statistics. It is
recommended to use it with the average speed of a vehicle at 50 km/h. A roughometer is installed on
the rod of a vehicle’s damper measures relative displacement of the damper’s rod with an average
sampling frequency of 0.10 meter with respect to the covered distance measured by the vehicle’s
speedometer/odometer. It computes the IRI (international roughness index) and does not give the road
profile explicitly but it gives a rough estimate of the road profile roughness with respect to the IRI
scale. Therefore, its main drawback is poor accuracy and with this tool, it is not possible to obtain a
micro road profile in order to assess road quality for maintenance or quality of newly built roads.
Estimation and evaluation of road roughness via different tools and methods 773.

Many of the response type tools of class 3 are accelerometers and acceleration sensors factory
installed on the vehicle, shock and vibration sensors, and health monitoring acceleration sensors of
hand-held electronic gadgets. For example, the studies [13] dedicated to feasibility studies of the use
of Roadroid [14] application for smartphones in the example of Samsung Galaxy SII with Roadroid
application for varying vehicle speeds demonstrate that the smartphones with Roadroid application are
capable of collecting sufficiently high quality of road profile data. Another response type measurement
study [15] was dedicated to measure road profile with the mobile Kistler Group measurement system
along with three distance measurement sensors and vehicle’s inertia measurement unit. The installed
sensors are meant to measure car body pitch rate, vehicle speed, suspension deflection (vertical
motion) and covered distance by a vehicle, and are based on inertial measurement, optical, mechanical
and laser measurement principles. The measurement of the study was carried out at 200 Hz sampling
rate on selected 150-meter-long road sections and the results of the study demonstrated that by
employing the Japanese method [5] for computing road roughness with 3 - meter straightedge the root
mean squared error values of the road roughness estimates ranged in-between 0.57 % to 4.7 %.
Another study [16] was devoted to measure the IRI of road profile with Z-axis (vertical) acceleration
sensors and Global Positioning System (GPS).
Amongst these tools, response type measurement tools with accelerometers are less expensive,
more efficient and more accessible for different users, viz. road builders, road maintenance specialists,
pavement quality assessment engineers, ride quality study people and researchers. However, it is not
straightforward to obtain the road profile from the measured data, which are vertical response
acceleration data collected on car body and axles with accelerometers. There are a few mathematical
(numerical analysis) methods along with digital data filters required to employ in order to obtain micro
road profile data from acceleration data. First of all, the measured data with accelerometers and
collected with data acquisition – analog-to-digital converters have to be digitally filtered and then
numerically converted from acceleration into displacement. For filtering purposes of measured raw
data, Kalman filters [17, 18], moving average, low-pass, high-pass and band-pass filters. The studies
[19] have demonstrated that most appropriate digital filters for removing noises in measured and
collected acceleration data are band-pass filters with frequency bands of [0.5 Hz … 50 Hz] that
eliminate most of the undesired disturbances in the signals. For numerical conversion of acceleration
data into displacement data after filtering the measured acceleration data, Fast Fourier Transform
(FFT) and double integration approaches are used. The study [20] has showed that FFT method with
direct digital integration for sinusoid type of signals are appropriate. However, road measurement
results of acceleration data in [19] have been tested with this approach to compute the road profile on
measured road sections and found to be utterly inaccurate for road profile calculations. Double
integration can be performed with several other numerical integration methods, such as, Simpsons,
trapezoidal, cumulative trapezoidal, cumulative summation, Riemann and Newmark-beta methods.

3. DATA ANALYSIS, INTEGRATION AND DIGITAL FILTERING TECHNIQUES

The employed eight different measurement tools of the road profile are processed and analyzed in
order to obtain road roughness assessment with IRI and profile along one lane with the following
statistical, data analysis and signal processing formulations.
1) Statistical analysis of the measured road pavement roughness with 3-meter long straightedge,
based on the statistical data analysis method [21], is performed.
2) IRI [2] values are computed from the following expression based on the Golden Car parameters
[22]:
(1)
The variables 𝑧̇𝑠,𝑖, 𝑧̇𝑢,𝑖 are velocities of sprung and un-sprung masses of the quarter car model in
[m/s] and responses computed based on the road excitation (input signal) from the road terrain.
774 A. Yunusov, S. Eshkabilov, D. Riskaliev, N. Abdukarimov

3) Moving average filter is applied for the road profile data measured with Total station 06. If the
given data points are , their N-moving average sequence points are computed from the
given sequence points of 𝑟𝑖 by taking the arithmetic mean values of subsequent points of N terms.

(2)
Where N is a window size. For example, N=5 means a 5-point moving average of the data.
4) To filter out raw measured acceleration data with smart phone, accelerometers, Arduino UNO
board + Accelerometer system called easy-DAQ by authors and V-BOX from undesired noises, the
following Butterworth band-pass filter is employed with band-pass frequencies of [0.5 Hz … 30 Hz].
𝐴𝑓=𝐻(𝑧̇)𝐴𝑟(𝑡) (3)

(4)
Where 𝐴(𝑡) are raw measured acceleration data and 𝐴𝑓 is its filtered component. 𝑎0,𝑎1,𝑎2,𝑎3,𝑎4 and
𝑏1,𝑏2,𝑏3,𝑏4,𝑏5 denominator and numerator filter coefficients of the second order filter’s transfer
function. The values of the coefficients: a = [1.0000, -3.4798, 4.5528, -2.6651, 0.5921], b = [0.0270,
0, -0.0541, 0, 0.0270]. Thus, the chosen second order digital filter’s transfer function is:

(5)
5) The filtered acceleration data sets are processed to obtain displacement data by using double
numerical integration based on Newmark - 𝛽 method [23].

(6)
Where 𝑧̇̈𝑖,̇𝑖, 𝑧̇𝑖 are vertical acceleration (measured), velocity (computed). Δ𝑡 is a time step and 𝛽 is
an important corrector factor of the model. The indexes 𝑖 and 𝑖+1 are consecutive orders of data points.

4. EXPERIMENTS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

As stated above, measurements were carried out with eight different sets of devices. The
measurements are geometrical measurements with 3-meter straightedge and Total Station 6 Leica Geo
SystemTMand mobile response type measurements: Laser profiler – DYNATESTTM, accelerometers –
DytranTM, accelerometer GY-61 with in-house developed data acquisition system with
ArduinoTMUNO board, smart phone – Samsung Galaxy SII with an application platform of Roadroid
Pro 2, Roughometer III developed by ARRB group Ltd and V- BOXTM. Geometrical (static) measured
data with Total Station 6 Leica Geo SystemTMwere taken as a main reference measurement for all
other measurements to assess their accuracy and correlations in locating considerable irregularities of
the selected road sections. For measurement tests, two asphalt pavement road sections, each of which
are 400 meters long, in the urban area of Tashkent city were selected. Geometrical measurements with
Total Station 6 Leica Geo SystemTMare carried on 1600 equally spaced (0.25 meter in-between
consecutive markers) points as shown in Fig. 1, a, and then with 3-meter long straightedge (Figure 1.b)
that all are carried out with respect to the ASTM Standard E1364-95 [24]. Subsequently, the response
type measurements with Laser profiler (Figure 2, a) and single axis accelerometers (Figure 2, b, c, d) –
DytranTM and GY-61 with Arduino UNO board are performed at a few constant velocities of a car –20,
30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 [km/h]. Moreover, the measurements with Smart Phone – Samsung Galaxy SII
installed on the front panel (Figure 3, a, b). The sampling rates for each measurement set of devices
differed; for example, a sampling rate for the Laser Profiler was chosen 12 samples per meter, for
accelerometers of DytranTM – 500 Hz, accelerometer GY-61 – 417 Hz, Smart Phone – 202.53 Hz and
V-BOX – 100 Hz.
Estimation and evaluation of road roughness via different tools and methods 775.

Fig. 1. Geometrical measurements: (a) Total Station 06 Leica Geo System; (b) 3 meter long straightedge
#11#

Fig. 2. Response type measurements: (a) Laser profiler DYNATEST; (b) Two accelerometers – Dytran installed
on car body; (c) One accelerometer – Dytran installed on the axle; (d) Accelerometer GY-61 installed on the
floor of the cabin

Measurements were carried out in two different types of vehicles, viz. NexiaTM - ShevroletTM –
sedan and DamasTM – ChevroletTM – minivan. A main considerable difference in the designs of the
two vehicles is their chassis systems (suspension system designs – independent and dependent types).
All measurements with the Laser Profiler were carried out only in DamasTM and simultaneous
776 A. Yunusov, S. Eshkabilov, D. Riskaliev, N. Abdukarimov

measurements with easy DAQ - accelerometer GY-61were carried out in DamasTM. It should be noted
that accelerometer GY-61 is trial axis and records accelerations along X, Y, Z-axis and rotational
accelerations around these axes as well. However, the accelerations along the Z-axis were picked up
and the others ignored. All other measurements with accelerometers of Dytran TM and GY-61, V-BOX,
Smart Phone and Roughometer III developed by ARRB group Ltd were carried out on NexiaTM-
ChevroletTM – sedan.
Three single axis accelerometers of DytranTM installed on the right axle (Fig. 2b) and car body (Fig.
2c - two accelerometers) with magnetic pads collected vertical accelerations. The measured data with
DytranTM accelerometers were collected via AD Converter DAQ – DT9837 from
DATATRANSLATION®. The accelerometers of DytranTM were 10 gram each with the reference
sensitivity of 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 mV/g (𝑔=9.81𝑚𝑠2). All measured data with response type profile
measurements were collected simultaneously in real time via laptop computers except for a Smart
Phone that worked autonomously.

Fig. 3. Response type measurements with Smart Phone – Samsung Galaxy SII: (a) Motions recorded
automatically; (b) Smart Phone installed on front panel of a car

Fig. 4. Roughometer III: (a) Sensor Installation; (b) Data collection

The acceleration pick-up of Racelogic V-BOX (not shown in Figures) was installed underneath of
easy-DAQ with GY-61 (see Fig. 2d). An acceleration sensor of Roughometer III developed by ARRB
group Ltd was installed (Fig. 4a) as recommended in its technical documentations on the shock
absorber of the rear axle and all instantaneous velocity values of the car were collected from the car’s
odometer (Fig. 4b).
All of the measurement runs were performed in two separate 400-meter long road sections for each
driving speed of: 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 km/h. The constant speed values were tracked based on
the odometer indicator vehicles.
The selected road sections of 400 meter distance were marked with artificial bumps in order to fix
exact distance and synchronization in the measured data from all response type measurements (RTMs)
in addition to their GPS data.
Estimation and evaluation of road roughness via different tools and methods 777.

At first, in each selected road section (called Forward section and Backward section) with Total
Station 06 (Fig. 5a) Forward section and b) Backward section) the road surface profile roughness was
measured on each road sections with four samples per meter (one data in 0.25 m) and then the
measured (road profile) points were de-trended and filtered with moving average of window-size of
five according to equation (2). Then the IRI assessments of each road section are computed and
analyzed. The calculated IRI index for Forward Section was 2.772 and for Backward Section was
3.681. The measured reference data – road profile with Total Station 06 were up-sampled with 10 data
points per 1 meter that demonstrated (Fig. 5) nice correlations with the measured data by preserving
clean and clear road irregularities and IRI value for each section. With Roughometer III, the IRI
indexes of two selected road sections were measured in different constant speeds 20, 30, 40, 50, 60,
70, 80 km/h and found IRI indexes of the two measured road sections were very close with the ones
obtained from the profile measured by Total Station 06 as recommended in higher speeds (> 40 km/h).
It should be noted that we have aimed to have the constant speeds of the vehicle at 20, 30, 40, 50,
60, 70 km/h, but actual speeds have been slower or faster by 5…10%. The response type of
measurements on the selected road sections with Laser Profiler DYNATEST at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70,
80 km/h on a mini-van Chevrolet– Damas has demonstrated very high quality correlations in both
selected road sections (Figure 6, a, b) with the reference (geometrical) measurements obtained with
Total Station 06. The IRI assessments of the measured road profiles obtained with Total Station 06
and Laser Profiler correlated very closely. Consequently, the IRI values from the profiles obtained at
20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 were 2.6251, 2.6188, 2.6041, 2.5585, 2.6596, 2.6561, 2.6571, respectively
that give the deviation in the range of 5.5 …7.7 % from the reference IRI value (of Total Station).
The RTMs with Smart Phone, accelerometer GY-61, accelerometers of Dytran and V-BOX system
were carried out simultaneously in order to find out correlations amongst the measured road profiles.
The measurements with accelerometer GY-61 (easy-DAQ) were carried out in Damas with Laser
Profiler and Nexia with other RTMs. The measured data obtained from these RTMs were acquired and
analyzed in the following procedures. 1) All measured data were recorded in real time to laptop
computers via AD converters. 2) Necessary part of the acquired data was taken out corresponding to
the selected road sections. 3) The selected part of the data were de-trended and filtered via the band-
pass filter with respect to the formulations (3), (4) and (5) using MATLAB functions detrend(),
butter(), filter(). 4) The filtered acceleration data were converted into displacement data by using
Newmark -𝛽 method (6). By varying the value of the parameter, the quality (well correlated road) of
the road profiles can be changed. The most suitable value of 𝛽 was found to be 0.12. 5) The computed
road profiles were compared with the reference ones from Total Station 06. 6) The IRI assessment
plots and values of the computed profiles were built against reference ones from Total Station 06.
The road profiles measured with Smart Phone at constant speeds 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 km/h on
a mini-van ChevroletTM– NexiaTM (Figure 7) showed that the higher correlations of the obtained road
profiles and IRI plots with the reference ones can be reached at higher speeds, i.e. 50 km/h. The
computed IRI at 50 km/h was 3.5698 that makes an offset of 7.3 % from the reference value (of Total
Station 06).
The road profiles measured with accelerometer GY-61 (easy-DAQ) at constant speeds
demonstrated better correlations with the reference ones from Total Station 06 in measurements
carried out in Damas (Fig. 9) than in Nexia (Fig. 8). That can be explained with the installation
/attachment of the equipment to the car body. In Damas, the DAQ with accelerometer GY-61 was
attached to the car body directly and in Nexia on the floor and considerable damping was present. The
AD converter had 10-bit processor that was not sufficient for sought studies and the quantization
problem was observed (Figure 10). Alike the measurements with Smart Phone, for better quality of the
measured road profiles with GY-61 (easy-DAQ), the measurements have to be carried out in higher
speeds (Figure 11). The IRI values obtained at 70 km/h and 80 km/h in Backward section were: 3.296
and 3.451 that give deviation error of 10.5 % and 3.8% from the reference value (Total Station 06).
The IRI values in Forward direction at 20, 30, 40 km/h were 2.91, 2.639, 2.879 that give an offset of -
5 …+5 % from the reference value (of Total Station).
The RTMs with the accelerometers of Dytran performed very well in higher speeds in particular
above 50 km/h (Figs. 13, 14, 15, 16) in defining road profiles and IRI assessment plots show in all
778 A. Yunusov, S. Eshkabilov, D. Riskaliev, N. Abdukarimov

measured profiles very good correlations and convergences with the reference ones from Total Station
06. However, it must be noted the importance of accelerometer’s installation. For example, the
accelerometers installed in car body (Figure 15) could not pick up excitations coming from the road
profile and thus, the computed profile does not reflect micro profiles of the road sections very well.
Moreover, it was necessary to have a correcting factor / multiplication factor with respect to vehicle
speed that is dependent of the technical condition of the car suspension system, tire type and air-
pressure in tires. The good convergences of the measured and computed profiles in Backward section
(Figs. 14 and 16) with the reference ones were observed, and in all cases of the IRI assessments in
Backward and Forward sections the accelerometers demonstrated very well with respect to the
reference. The computed IRI values in Backward direction at 40, 50, 60, 70 km/h found to be 3.157,
3.268, 3.319, 3.525 that make up offset values of the measured profiles with accelerometers of Dytran
to be 14, 11, 10, 4%. That also concludes the importance of performing the RTMs with accelerometers
at higher speeds.
An important point observed with all RTMs was that measuring profiles without a reference to
compare and just looking at the IRI value can be misleading for quality assessment of road profiles.
From the RTMs in lower speeds can give such an excitation signal to the quarter car model with the
golden car parameters that may give relatively close IRI values obtained by other RTM methods such
as rouhgometer III.

Fig. 5. a) Road elevation and profile from the measured data with Total Station 06 Leica Geo System on:
a) Forward section, b) Backward section

Fig. 6. a) The Road profile (Forward section) measured with Total Station 06 (Resampled and MA applied) vs.
Laser Profiler – DYNATEST at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 [km/h], b) The Road profile (Backward section) measured
with Laser Profiler – DYNATEST at 40, 60, 80 [km/h]
Estimation and evaluation of road roughness via different tools and methods 779.

Fig.7. a) Road profiles of Road Section – Backward obtained with Total Station 06 vs. Smart Phone at 50 km/h
with sampling frequency of 202 Hz, b) IRI plot computed from the road profiles: Total Station 06 vs. Smart
Phone

Fig. 8. a) Road profile (Forward section) measured with easy-DAQ at 20, 30, 40 km/h, b) IRI plot against Total
Station 06. Measurements carried out in Nexia

Fig. 9. Road profile (Forward Section) measured with easy-DAQ at: a) 50 km/h; b) 65 km/h and Total Station
06. Measurements carried out in Damas™

Fig. 10. a) IRI plot of Road profile (Forward Section) measured with easy-DAQ at 50 vs. and Total Station 06;
b) Quantization problem of 10-bit AD converter. Measurements carried out in DamasTM
780 A. Yunusov, S. Eshkabilov, D. Riskaliev, N. Abdukarimov

Fig. 11. Road profile (Section Forward) measured with easy-DAQ at 40, 60, and 65 km/h vs. Total Station 06.
Measurements carried out in DamasTM

Fig. 12. a) Road profile (Forward section) measured with Accelerometers – Dytran at 50, 60 km/h; b) IRI
assessment plots of road profiles with Accelerometers against Total Station 06

Fig. 13. a) Road profile (Backward section) measured with Accelerometers – Dytran at 50 km/h; b) IRI
assessment plots of road profiles with Accelerometers against Total Station 06
Estimation and evaluation of road roughness via different tools and methods 781.

Fig. 14. a) Road profile (Backward section) measured with Accelerometers – Dytran installed on car body and
axle at 70 km/h; b) IRI assessment plots of road profiles with Accelerometers against Total Station 06

Fig. 15. a) Road profile (Backward section) measured with Accelerometers – Dytran installed axle at 40, 50, 60
km/h; b) IRI assessment plots of road profiles with Accelerometers against Total Station 06

In order to make concluding remarks from all RTMs and geometrical measurements with Total
Station 06, the measured data with 3 - meter straightedge were statistically analyzed with respect to
[21]. The statistical analyses of the data showed that
Part 1. FORWARD Direction Road Roughness:
Road profile with roughness of ≤ 2 mm: 90.00 %
Road profile with roughness of ≤ 3 mm: 6.00 %
Road with roughness of > 3 mm: 4.00 %
Part 2. BACKWARD Direction:
Road profile with roughness of ≤ 2 mm: 77.00 %
Road profile with roughness of ≤ 3 mm: 11.00 %
Road with roughness of > 3 mm: 12.00 %.
From the statistical analyses of the data with 3-meter straightedge also showed that the road profile
roughness in Forward direction is much lower than in Backward direction. The statistical data cannot
say much about the road profile and road pavement irregularities/waves.
In performing the studied RTMs or similar other RTMs, there are two important aspects one of
which is practical (experimentation) actual measurement related issues and the other is signal
processing. First one is linked with installation of sensors (accelerometers) - where and how, which
type of pads and connecting means used, and appropriate DAQs (AD converters), and vehicle’s speed
and its suspension system’s.

5. CONCLUSIONS

The static geometrical measurement tools used in the studies – Total Station 06 Leica Geo System
and 3 meter straightedge can be used for reference purposes for the RTMs due to their high accuracy.
782 A. Yunusov, S. Eshkabilov, D. Riskaliev, N. Abdukarimov

However, one of the main shortcoming of these tools is their labor and time efficiency is considerably
low. The 3-meter straightedge or rack cannot detect road waves beyond 2 meters.
The comparative studies with geometrical and response type measuring tools and methods in
assessing road’s micro profiles and detecting irregularities have showed that the Laser Profiler of
DYNATESTTMis a superior and highly efficient tool with high accuracy comparable with the static
(geometrical tools) tools, e.g., Total Station 06 Leica Geo System. It is user friendly and no any
substantial signal processing is required for analysis of its measured data that are displacement or in
other words, clean road profile data. However, this tool’s high price and technical maintenance cannot
be applicable for all purpose roads and road builders. The Roughometer III is quick and easy to use
tool for general assessment of roads with a fixed speed of vehicle at 50 km/h that gives overall IRI
assessment of road segments. One of the main drawback of the tool is that it does not give the road
profile data. Smart Phones with adequate software applications like Roadroid can be used to evaluate
the road roughness with relatively good estimate. The accuracy of Smart Phones can be further
improved by adjusting sampling frequency of collected data that should better be beyond 250 Hz.
Moreover, a user needs a correcting or magnifying factor of the measured data that is dependent on a
vehicle’s speed and how it is installed. One of their advantages is that they are accessible for all users
and their costs are not high.
The other tools of the RTMs, viz. accelerometers – GY-61, technical conditions. The other is how
to perform signal conditioning and processing with digital filters and integrators to compute
displacement from acceleration data. The integration process can be a bit tricky because there are
several methods and recommended approaches of computing double integration and displacement
from acceleration. Some of the recommended ways work only in theoretical simulations but not with
the experimental data, for example, inverse Fourier transform.
Moreover, assessment and evaluation of the road profile via the IRI is rather straightforward and
can give some general evaluation of the road irregularities, but it cannot give a clear picture of the
road pavement profile, undesired roughness and waves on roads. Therefore, only measuring the IRI
may not be sufficient for road maintenance purposes or for checking the quality of the renovated or
newly built roads.
The RTMs and tools studied in this work have demonstrated that they are very efficient and can
provide considerably high quality assessments of road profiles by choosing the right tool and
employing appropriate signal processing approaches. Whereas, the tools used for the RTMs can be
challenging without appropriate practical knowledge how to use them.
Dytran and V-BOXTMmeasure road data considerably higher in accuracy in comparison with Smart
Phones. Racelogic V-BOXTMis a multi-purpose tool used for vehicle dynamics but its drawback for
such studies is its hardware and software costs, and some technical aspects to be considered in
installation and data analysis.
The accelerometers GY-61 and DytranTMare very promising tools for measuring road profiles and
by employing appropriate signal processing tools, viz. filters and integration methods, the quality of
their measured data can be improved further. The measured profiles with the accelerometers at higher
speeds (50 km/h or higher) have showed that the results from these tools can be comparable with the
one obtained in class II tools. Moreover, these tools are compact and lightweight, and substantially
cost efficient in comparison with the other class II tools, e.g. Laser Profiler. In particular, the easy-
DAQ (in-house developed set) with GY-61 accelerometer is very promising due to its extremely low
cost and compactness. One of the shortcomings with this tool is that it requires special software
application for AD conversion and data acquisition.
Our further studies will be dedicated to investigate the ways to improve the easy-DAQ with GY-61
by eliminating its quantization issue and developing an adequately stiff installation pad along with
development of a user-friendly graphical user interface. Moreover, to design a new design of printed
circuit board to collect data autonomously with its own memory.

Acknowledgement

This research is supported by the initiative of Dynamics & Control Lab.

Estimation and evaluation of road roughness via different tools and methods 783.

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