Abstract: To obtain the road potholes condition timely and effectively for improving the driving safety of intelligent vehicles, the non-contact pothole detection method and the active obstacle avoidance control algorithm were designed based on road pothole detection. The road pothole features were extracted by multi-sensor fusion technology, and area calculation and contour extraction of road potholes were conducted based on visual images. By single point ranging laser radar, the pothole depth was measured. The vehicle model and the road pothole model were built by Adams. According to the evaluation index of human comfort, the limit speeds for different size potholes were determined. The active obstacle avoidance algorithm of road pothole was designed based on the fuzzy control theory. The Simulink/Carsim co-simulation was carried out to verify the algorithm. The results show that the algorithm can meet the system design requirements for controlling the vehicle to safely and comfortably pass through the road potholes and effectively reduce the accident rate of vehicles under dangerous conditions.