Abstract
Safety has always been important concern during development of automotive systems. Many required accurate predictions of tire forces. Recently, Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulators provide ways to accurately measure the actual tire force and its interaction with a newly designed system by incorporating an actual tire during simulations. This paper reports an HIL system that incorporates tire, suspension, and steering system for better inclusion of their interactions and their effects on handling of the vehicle. The system simulates a road surface by using a rotating drum and uses a real suspension together with a steering system where wheel speed, side slip angle, and longitudinal slip angle can be controlled. Design and sizing of the components were done by using results from simulations with a bicycle model and a HIL model. Control system design and tracking performance are also reported. This system was also used to construct a tire model for simulations. In the HIL simulation, simulation models are used for the vehicle body dynamics and the rear tire while the front tire is simulated with the real hardware described. Tire lateral slip angle is controlled on the HIL hardware and the tire force measured is used to simulate vehicle motion. HIL-simulated results are compared to the result from pure bicycle model simulation.
Keywords: Tire, Suspension, Hardware-In-The-Loop, Vehicle dynamics, Simulation