Deep Neural Networks for Road Surface Roughness Classification from Acoustic Signals

Vehicle noise emissions are highly dependent on the road surface roughness and materials. A classification of the road surface conditions may be useful in several regards, from driving assistance to in-car audio equalization. With the present work we exploit deep neural networks for the classification of the road surface roughness using microphones placed inside and outside the vehicle. A database is built to test our classification algorithms and results are reported, showing that the roughness classification is feasible with the proposed approach.