Precision enhancement of smartphone sensor-based pavement roughness estimation by standardizing host vehicle speed

Condition assessment of pavement has a predominant part in delivering safety and comfort to users. Roughness is considered the most important characteristic as it affects road safety and vehicle operating costs. Authorities spend significant quantity of resources on using conventional methods for measuring roughness. Many researches are performed to estimate roughness by deploying smartphone sensors. However, no consideration is given to the influence of the speed of the host vehicle in roughness evaluation using smartphones. This work explains a smartphone sensor-based roughness evaluation technique by deploying the quarter car simulation model. The accuracy is checked with the simultaneously collected international roughness index (IRI) measured by a roughometer. Results of the smartphone-based pavement roughness estimation experiment showed a high correlation value of 0.73, and proved the accuracy of the method. The data were segregated based on three speed ranges. The correlation between the smartphone-based and roughometer-based IRI for all ranges was analyzed, and the R 2 value of 0.75 was exhibited for 31–50 km/h range.