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Most active control systems developed for passenger vehicles are developed as safety systems. These control systems usually focus on improving vehicle stability and safety while ignoring the effects on the vehicle driveability. While stability is the primary concern of these control systems the driveability of the vehicle is also an important consideration. An example of compromised driveability in a stability control system is brake based active yaw control. Brake based systems are very effective at stability control but can have a negative impact on the longitudinal dynamics of a vehicle. The objective of the vehicle control systems developed for the future will be to preserve vehicle driveability while ensuring the stability of the vehicle. In this work, active suspension and active drivelines are developed as stability control systems that have a minimal impact on the driveability of the vehicle.

Many active control systems are developed as safety systems for passenger vehicles. These control systems usually focus on improving vehicle stability and safety while ignoring the effects on the vehicle driveability. In the motorsport environment, increased stability is desirable but not if the driveability of the vehicle is heavily compromised. In this work, active suspension and active drivelines are examined to improve vehicle dynamics and enhance driveability while maintaining stability. The active control systems are developed as separate driveability and stability controls and tested individually then integrated to create a multi-objective control system to improve both driveability and stability. The controllers are tested with standard vehicle manoeuvres.

A number of handling models of a small high performance formula type racing car have been produced. These have been used to optimise the performance of the vehicle whilst under going simple manoeuvres and around a complete race track. Recently the vehicle was fitted with a data acquisition system and objective data was taken of the vehicle's handling performance. The paper details an investigation into the accuracy of two (a simple and more sophisticated) vehicle handling models in predicting the actual vehicle's performance from the data collected by comparing measured and simulated results. The investigation studies the steady state and transient response of the vehicle up to the limit of the vehicle's handling performance. A description is also given of the use of the more sophisticated model in a virtual race track simulation where it is used as a development tool to tune the performance of future vehicles.

This paper presents a method of control for a 6×6 series-configured Hybrid Electric Off-road Vehicle (HEOV). The vehicle concerned is an eight-tonne logistics support vehicle which utilizes Hub Mounted Electric Drives (HMED) at each of its six wheel stations. This set-up allows Individual Wheel Control (IWC) to be implemented to improve vehicle handling and mobility. Direct Yaw-moment Control (DYC) is a method of regulating individual wheel torque to control vehicle yaw motion, providing greater stability in cornering. When combined with both a Traction Control System (TCS) and an Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) the tire/road interaction is fully controlled, leading to improved control over vehicle dynamics, whilst also improving vehicle safety.