Vehicle Collision Reconstruction With 3-D Inertial Navigation and GNSS

Complex and fatal road vehicle crashes are often a matter of dispute in forensic investigation. The proposed algorithms and methods, utilizing data from inertial measurement units and satellite navigation, enable road-vehicle trajectory reconstruction in 3-D suitable for postaccident forensic analysis. This paper provides an estimate of the reliability of this approach and its relation to component specifications. We start by describing an appropriate type of the strap-down inertial navigation system before providing a detailed performance analysis when the system is integrated with global navigation satellite systems. In addition, we present custom hardware and embedded software solutions, as well as experimental evaluation in real-world case study, capturing typical crash scenario performed at an approved safety performance assessment laboratory. In our experiments, strap-down inertial mechanization was used for short-term vehicle trajectory reconstruction using sensor readings and compared with ground-truth position captured on video. We have used reference equipment to validate the approach and the experiment resulted in a positioning accuracy on a decimeter level.