Utilisation of actuators to improve vehicle stability at the limit: from hydraulic brakes towards electric propulsion

Other conference contribution, 2009

The capability of over-actuated vehicles to maintain stability during limit handling is studied in this paper. A number of important differently actuated vehicles, equipped with hydraulic brakes towards more advanced chassis solutions, are presented. A virtual evaluation environment has specifically been developed to cover the complex interaction between the driver and the vehicle under control. In order to fully exploit the different actuators set-up, and the hard non-convex constraints they possess, the principle of control allocation by nonlinear optimisation is successfully employed. The final evaluation is made by exposing the driver and the over-actuated vehicles to a safety-critical manoeuvre. Thereby, the differently actuated vehicles are ranked by a quantitative indicator of stability.