Abstract
Automobile manufacturers manage a big effort to ensure driving safety of their cars by testing them in all relevant driving manoeuvres and on different surfaces. Extensive measurement equipment is used to describe the driving behaviour in those tests by objective characteristic values. In straight-line braking and braking while cornering, the measurable yaw rate deviation is a well known and proven characteristic value to describe the driving safety of a car in these tests. The goal of this study was to analyze the objective and measurable lane keeping ability of normal drivers in straight-line braking and braking while cornering with respect to selectively varied yaw rate deviations. In a representative experiment, including 100 normal drivers, the yaw rate deviation of a fully instrumented vehicle was varied by use of a rear wheel steering up to 16 °/s fixed control value. The driver’s task was to follow a given lane, marked with cones, as exactly as possible after braking. Based on accurately captured path deviations by a Differential GPS-System, a progressive loss of lane keeping ability with increasing values of yaw rate deviation could be observed.
Keywords: Driving Safety, Controllability, Stability, Lane Keeping, Yaw Rate Deviation