Dynamic Mass Measurement of Moving Vehicles

Abstract

Dynamic mass measurement for moving vehicles is proposed utilizing linear system theory. The measurement system considered in this paper is a vehicle scale commonly used for static measurement. In case a vehicle does not stop on the platform, the measured signal cannot be expected to be constant, but contains disturbance signals caused by the dynamics of the measurement system and the vehicle to be measured. Then, we have to eliminate the disturbance signals in order to extract a constant signal propotional to the mass of the vehicle.
The difficulty in this problem is that we have no sufficient prior information about the dynamics of the vehicle. Therefore, we need to identify it after we start measurement. For this purpose, the linear system theory is an appropriate tool. We present a method of computing parameters representing the dynamics of the vehicle from the measured signal. In this way, the mass of the vehicle can be calculated. Experimental results imply that the precision of 1/1500 can be achieved.