Foresight Vehicle: Drive-by-Tyre

This paper presents work aimed at investigating the feasibility of improved vehicle dynamics control through tyre/road contact patch force monitoring. The paper describes an experimental investigation of the tyre/ground contact patch behavior of an automobile tyre. The investigation was carried out on a rolling tyre using test rigs instrumented with a tri-axial force transducer to provide longitudinal, lateral and vertical stress measurements at the tyre/ground contact patch. The paper also describes a custom-made simulation model which combines the information contained in the tyre/ground contact patch experiments with a standard vehicle dynamics and tyre characteristics model. Results arising from typical automobile maneuvers performed using this tyre-vehicle simulation model are presented and their significance is explained.