Performance Tasks as Measures of Vehicle Handling Qualities at the Limit of Performance

Several performance tasks have been developed as objective measures of vehicle handling qualities. These tasks are shown to give consistent and repeatable results for any given vehicle condition and to discriminate between different vehicle conditions. They are practical, require simple instrumentation, and are related to performance. The philosophy of the tasks, instrumentation, test procedures, and typical results are presented. It is concluded that these tasks or modifications of them have utility in many design and performance evaluation applications.