Active Dual Mode Tilt Control for Narrow Ground Vehicles

Small, narrow commuter vehicles have attracted considerable interest in recent years as a means to increase the utilization of existing freeways and parking facilities. However, conventional narrow track vehicles are likely to have reduced stability against overturning during hard cornering. A possible solution to this problem lies in vehicles which tilt toward the inside of a turn. Two different ways to achieve this tilt will be analyzed. For direct tilt control (DTC) an actuator forces the upper part of the vehicle to tilt. Steering tilt control (STC) uses steering to control the tilt as is done by motorcycle or bicycle riders. At low speeds, only the DTC system is effective while at high speeds the STC offers less lateral acceleration for the passenger during transient cornering and may seem more natural. The two methods of control will be studied separately and it will be shown that even though the same steady state tilt can be achieved with either system, the transient behavior of the systems is very different. It also will be shown that it is possible to switch from one system to the other at an arbitrarily chosen speed with virtually no transient effects even when the vehicle is not in a steady state. Regardless of which control system is active, the driver simply communicates his desire to follow the road by moving the steering wheel and the control systems take care of the tilting either by using the tilt actuator or by actively steering the road wheels. Thus the driver does not need to leam how to stabilize the tilt mode of the vehicle.