Experimental Validation of the Hilbert Envelope Road Vehicle Shock Detection Algorithm

ABSTRACT Accurate and reliable detection of the shocks that occasionally occur during road transport is important as these shocks are a likely cause of product damage. Access to a simple and reliable shock detection tool will improve the understanding of the nature of these shocks and, consequently, promote improvement in the design of protective packaging systems. This paper deals with the validation of an algorithm, first proposed by the authors, for detecting shocks and transients produced by road vehicles. It includes an overview of the original paper by the authors followed by the evaluation and validation of the algorithm. The algorithm was evaluated experimentally by using a specially built two degree‐of‐freedom (DoF) single wheeled vehicle placed on a computer‐controlled road simulator. Several artificially generated road profiles of varying roughness levels were created onto which aberrations of varying length (effective frequencies) and diminishing amplitudes were superimposed. Results show that shocks of significant magnitudes (i.e., acceleration levels clearly distinguishable from the underlying acceleration levels) were consistently detected (no missed detections), especially for smooth to moderate roads, whereas smaller shocks were found to become increasingly drowned out by the vibration response as the underlying road roughness increased. The ability of the shock detection algorithm to consistently allocate shocks to the correct frequency band corresponding to the two natural frequencies of the vehicle was confirmed. The results verify the reliability and sensitivity of the algorithm originally obtained by the authors and pave the way for application on multiwheeled road vehicles travelling on real roads.