Road Surface Condition Detection in Bicycle for Active Safety Applications

Nowadays, the tendency of people using bicycles as the way of transportation has increased as well as the tendency of the bicycle accidents. According to the research of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), National Survey on Bicyclist and Pedestrian Attitude and Behavior, the major root causes of bicycle accidents are from the road surface condition. Thus, this work has developed the system to detect the road surface condition. The system utilizes the laser and camera to measure the height of road. Then, with the information of the road height and bicycle speed, the road surface condition can be classified into 3 categories due to severe condition of the road. For the secure road, cyclists could safely ride on it. For the warning road, cyclists need to slow down the speed. Lastly, for the dangerous road, cyclists have to stop their bicycles. Also, the road surface condition information is useful for many active safety applications such as active warning systems to increase the reliability of the system and safety of cyclists.