Abstract
Keywords: multibody, dynamics, control, collision, mitigation
In recent years there have been two key areas of major development in the area of automotive collision mitigation. One of these areas is the development of Advance Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) that aim to help reduce the risk of a collision occurring in the first place. The other key area of research is that of vehicle structural development. Current research has highlighted the importance of vehicle compatibility on the crash structure performance. However little literature exists that discusses the effect that vehicle dynamics (such as pitch, roll and yaw) and chassis control systems have on vehicle compatibility and collision mitigation.
The research detailed in this paper aims to use vehicle dynamic control systems to optimize the vehicles braking, pitch, roll and yaw characteristics for an impending collision. To perform such studies, it is important to have a vehicle dynamic simulation that can also include the vehicle crash structural dynamics. This paper outlines the development of a unique multibody vehicle dynamic/crash analysis model. This enables the analysis of a generic vehicle dynamic model, together with a multibody crash model, so that the effects of a variety of dynamic control approaches can be analysed. This will give a valuable insight into the effects of vehicle dynamic control on the collision severity.
Results show that this simple and fast method of simulating both the vehicle dynamics and crash dynamics in a single multibody model is an effective and accurate tool for generic vehicle analysis. Studies of two collision scenarios where performed and results showed that the vehicle dynamic controls had differing levels of effectiveness depending on the collision scenario. ABS braking controls have detrimental affects on a vehicle crash performance during offset barrier impacts while active suspension controls prove to significantly improvement vehicle-to-vehicle collision compatibility. Direct Yaw Control (DYC) has little effect on controlling vehicle yaw behaviour during offset barrier impacts but significantly improves the vehicle lateral stability during vehicle to vehicle impacts.