Road Surface Condition Detection with Planar Capacitive Sensors

Abstract:
This paper presents a new approach to detect the road surface condition by planar capacitive sensors, placed on the wheel arch liner of a motor vehicle. For this purpose, various design parameters of interdigital electrodes are studied by means of the finite element method (FEM). Based on this, a suitable design is proposed for the detection of whirled up water, which is manufactured on a flexible printed circuit board (PCB) and investigated in an experimental study. Therefore, a test bench is built, which includes a motor vehicle’s front wheel arch liner and can simulate realistic road surface scenarios. Experimental results show the possibility to distinguish between different scenarios. Furthermore, they prove that a static wetting of the wheel arch liner can be detected.