Integrated Stability Control for Narrow Tilting Vehicles: An Envelope Approach

This paper proposes an integrated stability control strategy for tilting vehicles. The work extends the envelope-based lateral stability controller by introducing and enforcing the roll envelope in the optimal control design. The model predictive controller (MPC) scheme is adopted to apply the control effort only when the predicted vehicle states are leaving the safe envelopes. The non-minimum phase problem in active tilting control is handled by utilizing the predictive feature of the controller. It is shown via the simulation in CarSim that, by adopting the envelope-based control scheme, the control effort to maintain the roll stability of narrow vehicles can be greatly reduced. The integrated controller also improves the vehicle handling performance while still guarantees its lateral and roll stability.