Abstract
Many of today's modern vehicles are 'smart' enough to sense their environments and make decisions that influence things such as handling, stability, safety and comfort. For example, ABS ESC / ESP, ACC etc. The above mentioned systems make decisions to influence vehicle behaviour, hence called active control systems. In a familiar sense these can be termed as Active Chassis Control. As of today, these systems are functioning individually and called as stand alone systems. Integration of these stand alone systems improves the performance of one, at the same time deteriorates the other. Successful integration of any two of these stand alone systems with a longterm goal of integration all of them is one of the major playgrounds for the researchers in the field of vehicle dynamics and control.
The goals of this paper are to take advantage of active suspensions combined with active yaw control to improve the vehicle yaw rate response and antilock braking systems combined with active suspensions to further reduce the vehicle braking time and distance and improve the ride comfort. For this reason a nonlinear vehicle model was developed along with the individual subsystems (ASS, ABS and AYC). The actuator dynamics and stand alone controllers were developed. Then the integration algorithms are applied to improve the global vehicle performance. Preliminary results of this coordinated approach show an improvement in vehicle yaw response, reduction in braking distance and unsprung mass acceleration.
Keywords: Integrated Chassis Control, Active suspension, Antilock brakes, Yaw Control, Ride and Handling.