Vehicle-Trailer Handling Dynamics and Stability Control ─ an Engineering Review

This paper presented an engineering review on the state of the art in the research and development of vehicle-trailer handling dynamics and stability controls. The issues and potential technical solutions were identified in various areas and the unique characteristics of vehicle-trailer as a combined system were investigated and compared to a single-unit vehicle system. Many approaches taken in modeling, analysis, simulation and testing were examined, and various control methods, actuations and control implementations were evaluated. As a result of this study, further research areas were also identified. While it is important to maintain the stability of a trailer, thus the stability of a vehicle-trailer combination, it remains one of the major challenges in designing an appropriate control law to balance effectively the requirements between stability and handling performance, which often set conflicting objectives.