Evaluation of Vehicle Kinematics Using GPS and Other Technologies 2013-01-0769

A study was conducted in order to assess the ability of tablet computers and GPS surveying equipment to measure vehicle kinematics. Although designed for other purposes, these devices have advanced electronics and data capture abilities that can be used to record a history of position data in four dimensions (x, y, z, and time). Many users of this type of equipment might not be aware of this. In contrast, several currently accepted devices for measuring and relating vehicle position, velocity, acceleration, and time are capable of only uniaxial and/or unidirectional measurements. Through a series of simple experiments, vehicular motion was generated through in-line braking to a stop, driving in a circle, and braking to a stop in a curve. This motion was simultaneously captured using an Apple iPad, a Topcon GPS surveying system, a bumper gun, an optical speed trap, event data from a powertrain control module (PCM), a custom built tri-axial accelerometer, a “G-Cube” racing accelerometer, and hi-speed, high definition video. Kinematic data from the various devices and methodologies are presented for comparison.