Making A Road Simulator Simulate

This paper defines a laboratory road simulator system and discusses various problems associated with using such a machine to test vehicles.

Advantages and disadvantages of various methods for applying input forces to the vehicle are discussed to show why the author chose the method of exciting through the tire in the vertical direction only.

The development of a method for solving the problem of simulating the rolling tire vertical properties is presented. Vertical and fore-aft response correlation resulting from this tire simulation is shown and the types of problems the author has chosen to study with this test system are explained.