# Comfort-Oriented Pothole Traversal Using Multi-Sensor Perception and Fuzzy Control

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a system that uses sensors and fuzzy control to help vehicles safely and comfortably cross potholes by adjusting their speed.

## Contribution

The novel approach combines multi-sensor perception and fuzzy control to optimize pothole traversal comfort while ensuring safety.

## Key findings

- The system effectively adjusts vehicle speed before pothole traversal to improve ride comfort.
- Multi-scenario simulations and real-vehicle experiments validated the method's effectiveness in maintaining comfort and safety.

## Abstract

Potholes are typical negative road obstacles that can significantly compromise vehicle safety and ride comfort when traversed at inappropriate speeds. To address this issue, this paper proposes a pothole-detection-based, comfort-oriented pothole traversal algorithm that integrates multi-sensor fusion perception, comfort-constrained speed planning, and fuzzy control. A camera and a single-point ranging LiDAR are first fused to extract key geometric features of potholes, including contour, area, and depth. Based on these features, a vehicle–pothole dynamic model is developed in ADAMS to quantify the influence of pothole area and depth on vehicle vertical vibration. The vertical frequency-weighted root-mean-square (RMS) acceleration is adopted as the ride comfort indicator, based on which the maximum allowable traversal speed under different pothole geometries is determined. Furthermore, a longitudinal pothole traversal control strategy based on fuzzy theory is designed to regulate vehicle acceleration, enabling the vehicle to reach the comfort-constrained limiting speed within a finite preview distance while ensuring braking safety. The proposed method is validated through multi-scenario co-simulations using MATLAB/Simulink and CarSim, as well as real-vehicle experiments. Results demonstrate that the proposed strategy can effectively adjust vehicle speed before pothole traversal, satisfying comfort constraints and improving ride comfort without sacrificing driving safety.