Active systems, from active safety to energy management, play a crucial role in
the development of new road vehicles. However, the increasing number of
controllers creates an important issue regarding complexity and system
integration. This article proposes a high-level controller managing the
individual active systems—namely, Torque Vectoring (TV), Active Aerodynamics,
Active Suspension, and Active Safety (Anti-lock Braking System [ABS], Traction
Control, and Electronic Stability Program [ESP])—through a dynamic state
variation. The high-level controller is implemented and validated in a
simulation environment, with a series of tests, and evaluate the performance of
the original design and the proposed high-level control. Then, a comparison of
the Virtual Driver (VD) response and the Driver-in-the-Loop (DiL) behavior is
performed to assess the limits between virtual simulation and real-driver
response in a lap time condition. The main advantages of the proposed design
methodology are its simplicity and overall cooperation of different active
systems, where the proposed model was able to improve the vehicle behavior both
in terms of safety and performance, giving more confidence to the driver when
cornering and under braking. Some differences were discovered between the
behavior of the VD and the DiL, especially regarding the sensitivity to external
disturbances.
