Benchmark vehicle suspension data based on ISO 8608 road profiles

Ride comfort is a key factor in passenger safety and is largely determined by the suspension system of a vehicle. Although mechanical active suspension systems have greatly improved ride quality, the move towards electronically controlled active suspensions—driven by rapid advances in vehicle technology—requires more sophisticated engineering solutions. This challenge is made even greater by the increasing variability of modern road infrastructure. To design and validate such solutions, suspension systems need to be tested across a wide variety of road surface profiles. Understanding the system’s limitations under different conditions is crucial before developing and evaluating control strategies. For this reason, standardised road profiles that accurately represent different types of terrain are essential. This paper presents a benchmark dataset for vehicle suspension systems based on ISO-compliant road profiles. The dataset has been developed to support researchers working on suspension parameter identification, control algorithm design, and the study of nonlinear suspension behaviour. To illustrate its value, a benchmark comparison of system identification models using the dataset is provided. The data containing ISO road profiles and measured suspension displacements, along with codes for modelling and visualisation, is freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17242919