Driving analytics using smartphones: Algorithms, comparisons and challenges

The present work investigates the use of smartphones as an alternative to gather data for driving behavior analysis. The proposed approach incorporates i. a device reorientation algorithm, which leverages gyroscope, accelerometer and GPS information, to correct the raw accelerometer data, and ii. a machine-learning framework based on rough set theory to identify rules and detect critical patterns solely based on the corrected accelerometer data. To evaluate the proposed framework, a series of driving experiments are conducted in both controlled and “free-driving” conditions. In all experiments, the smartphone can be freely positioned inside the subject vehicle. Findings indicate that the smartphone-based algorithms may accurately detect four distinct patterns (braking, acceleration, left cornering and right cornering) with an average accuracy comparable to other popular detection approaches based on data collected using a fixed position device.