Enhancing Vehicle Safety: Investigating the Role of Active Anti-Roll Bars in Vehicle Dynamics

A serious problem of public healthcare around the world is the number of road vehicle accidents, every year almost 1,3 million people die and approximately 20 to 50 million people suffer a non-fatal accident because of a road vehicle accident [1]. As a result of that, in 2021 the World Health Organization stated the “The Second Decade of Action for Road Safety”, which the goal is to prevent at least 50% of deaths and injuries due traffic by 2030. To achieve this goal, the automobile companies have invested in technology and products that can enhance vehicle safety. Despite exist some control systems able to reduce roll, and consequently the roll over, such as active suspension, semi-active suspension, and stability control systems, none of them have as main purpose reduce the number of rollovers. The following study aims to examine the effects of an active anti roll bar, to improve the vehicle dynamics during corners and reduce the risk of a rollover by reducing the roll of the sprung mass and reducing the total weight transfer of the vehicle. The model utilized to reproduce the vehicle dynamics was a bicycle model with 3 degrees of freedom, to describe the tyre lateral forces it was used the nonlinear Pacejka model and as actuator to the active anti roll bar was modeled a direct current motor. The study of cases has shown that during a fishhook maneuver the active anti roll bar was able to improve the performance of the vehicle by reducing the roll angle during the transient and steady state.