Development of a Method to Assess Vehicle Stability and Controllability in Open and Closed-Loop Maneuvers

This paper describes a method to evaluate vehicle stability and controllability when the vehicle operates in the nonlinear range of lateral dynamics. The method is applied to open-loop steering maneuvers as well as closed-loop path-following maneuvers. Although path-following maneuvers are more representative of real world driving intent, they are usually considered inappropriate for objective assessment because of repeatability and accuracy issues. The automated test driver (ATD) can perform path-following maneuvers accurately and with good repeatability. This paper discusses the usefulness of application of the automated test drivers and path-following maneuvers. The dynamic mode of instability is not directly obtained from measurable outputs such as yawrate and lateral acceleration as in open-loop maneuvers. A few metrics are defined to quantify deviation from desired or ideal behavior in terms of observed “unexpected” lateral force and moment. These signals are estimated using sliding mode method. The metrics are in terms of unexpected energy and unexpected position and can be applied to an open or closed-loop maneuver. The method is also shown to quantify active stability control systems.