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A two-degree-of-freedom Roll Simulator has been developed to study the occupant kinematics of Recreational Off-Highway Vehicles (ROVs). To validate the roll simulator, test data was collected on a population of ROVs on the market today. J-turn maneuvers were performed to find the minimum energy limits required to tip up the vehicles. Two sets of tests were performed: for the first set, 10 vehicles were tested, where the motion was limited by safety outriggers to 10-15 degrees of roll; and for the second set, three of these vehicles were re-tested with outriggers removed and the vehicle motion allowed to reach 90 degrees of roll. These quarter-turn rollover tests were performed autonomously using an Automatic Steering Controller (ASC) and a Brake and Throttle Robot (BTR). Lateral and longitudinal accelerations as well as roll rate and roll angle were recorded for all tests.

Torsional stiffness properties were developed for both a 53-foot box trailer and a 28-foot flatbed control trailer based on experimental measurements. In order to study the effect of torsional stiffness on the dynamics of a heavy truck vehicle dynamics computer model, static maneuvers were conducted comparing different torsional stiffness values to the original rigid vehicle model. Stiffness properties were first developed for a truck tractor model. It was found that the incorporation of a torsional stiffness model had only a minor effect on the overall tractor response for steady-state maneuvers up to 0.4 g lateral acceleration. The effect of torsional stiffness was also studied for the trailer portion of the existing model.

This paper describes a method to evaluate vehicle stability and controllability when the vehicle operates in the nonlinear range of lateral dynamics. The method is applied to open-loop steering maneuvers as well as closed-loop path-following maneuvers. Although path-following maneuvers are more representative of real world driving intent, they are usually considered inappropriate for objective assessment because of repeatability and accuracy issues. The automated test driver (ATD) can perform path-following maneuvers accurately and with good repeatability. This paper discusses the usefulness of application of the automated test drivers and path-following maneuvers. The dynamic mode of instability is not directly obtained from measurable outputs such as yawrate and lateral acceleration as in open-loop maneuvers. A few metrics are defined to quantify deviation from desired or ideal behavior in terms of observed “unexpected” lateral force and moment.

The state of Ohio has recognized the importance and potential impact of Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems (IVHS) to its citizens and business enterprises. In response to the identified need, a small group of individuals representing Federal and state government, academia, and the private sector have worked together over the past year to initiate a statewide IVHS effort. This initiative is referred to as IVHS~Ohio. The objective of the effort is to "coordinate and foster a public, private, and academic partnership to make the urban and rural surface transportation system in the state of Ohio significantly safer, more effective, and more efficient by accelerating the identification, development, integration, and deployment of IVHS technologies." A May 1993 symposium was attended by over 220 people from government, academia, and the private sector. The result was a unanimous decision to establish a statewide IVHS program.

The objective of this paper is to develop a self-tuning optimal control of an active suspension. An active suspension composed of an identifier and a controller is proposed in this paper. Although control strategies on active (or semi-active) suspensions have been investigated during the past few decades, some problems are not well understood yet. One of them arising from the ride control of an active suspension is that when the weight and the moments of inertia of the sprung mass are varied, the feedback gains of the controller should vary with the variation of parameters accordingly. Therefore, the identifier is proposed before the controller is designed. In the real situations, the parameter variation may occur when loadings on vehicles vary - either from passengers or payloads, especially, in the case of loading on a truck. An identification structure using parallel model reference adaptive system (MRAS) is proposed to identify the true parameters.